Control
by nikodark
Summary: Dick Grayson gets kidnapped a lot. A whole lot. We all know that tired trope. But this time he gets kidnapped by a ghost. (Approximate time frame is before PP for Danny Phantom, late season 1 for Young Justice.)
1. Chapter 1

**Here I put the usual disclaimers to apply for this whole story - I own neither the shows nor the characters, and do this only for my own entertainment or something like that...**

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The bell signaling the end of school rang none too soon for Dick Grayson's liking. The weekend had officially arrived. He grabbed his books and hurried to his locker, hard to spot among the crowd of other High School students, most of whom were older than him (and therefore taller) by a few years. Stuffing his books into his backpack he headed for the exit, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his navy uniform blazer as he went.

He had big plans for the weekend, and nothing short of a National Emergency was going to stop him this time. Dick and Wally had been planning this overnight for months now, and it had already been postponed three times. It almost got canceled again because Bruce was away for the weekend at some important business meeting – something about competing hostile takeovers of a small startup company that had invented a now power source that Bruce didn't want being controlled by the wrong people. That would leave Robin to patrol the city alone at night. Gotham had been relatively quiet lately however so, some pleading and wrangling later, it was agreed Wally could stay over as long as Kid Flash helped out with patrols and they didn't shirk their criminal-fighting duties should something come up.

They would have two whole days (minus night patrols) to vegetate in Dick's room playing the latest release of Doomed. Dick had actually gotten an early copy as a favor from one of Bruce's acquaintances, and if things had gone as originally planned they would have beaten the game before it was even available to the public. As it was, Dick had promised Wally he would wait to play until they could do it together, and the Team had been too busy for him to even think about breaking that promise. Today however was the official release day, so they had to have this weekend.

A sudden eerie chill up his spine brought Dick out of his reverie. His pace slowed as he became more conscious of his surroundings again. "No, no, no," he mumbled to himself irritably. No more interruptions! Despite the feeling that he was being watched, he didn't spot anyone out of place or anything threatening. Exiting the front gates of the school, he saw Alfred with the limo on the corner and had to restrain himself from sprinting the last few yards through the throng of other students catching their rides.

Alfred raised an eyebrow as he quickly opened the limo door and Dick dashed inside. "Is everything all right, Master Dick?" he asked as he closed the door and took his own seat in the front.

"Yeah, sure. Just excited for the weekend." Dick plastered on a smile. No way was he going to give Alfred or Bruce even the slightest excuse to call off his weekend again.

"Very good, sir." However, as Alfred looked away, Dick bit his lip in indecision. His instincts were usually pretty good and at that moment they were screaming at him that something was wrong. Alfred pulled the car into traffic and set off for the highway. Just as Dick decided he really did have to say something, he suddenly felt a cold hand cover his mouth, stifling him.

Dick's eyes widened in panic, but he couldn't see any sign of his assailant. Before he could act he felt another invisible arm grab around his waist and pull him through the back of the car. His mouth was uncovered as the first arm also wrapped around him, pinning his arms, and then they shot into the air.

Dick began to struggle, his training as Robin automatically kicking in. He threw his head back to head butt his kidnapper while twisting his body. He was just beginning to slip free when a young male voice said, "You might want to rethink escaping, this far up. I can probably catch you before you hit the ground, but I don't think either one of us wants to bet on it." Dick took a split second to reassess his surroundings and froze as he realized exactly how high up they were. He may be as at home in the air between trapezes as on them, but even he couldn't drop 300 feet without something to break his fall.

He could have sworn he heard a sigh of relief as he stopped fighting. "Just cooperate and you won't get hurt," the voice behind him said. His captor shifted his grip underneath Dick's arms to hold him more securely and then they started moving, flying, fast to the west.

If Dick has been a normal kid, he would have been completely freaking out by that point. But working on a regular basis with a team of superheroes meant this wasn't actually all that unusual. Honestly, he knew a few people who could be invisible, walk through solid objects, and fly. He might be inclined to think this was some prank Wally had talked Miss Martian into if not for the fact that that would have required Wally to tell her Dick's secret identity, which would have made both Dick and Batman very unhappy. No one on the team was stupid enough to anger Batman that much, not even Wally (well, not on purpose anyway).

Dick figured they had been flying for about 10 minutes before he noticed he could now see the arms holding him. Two white gloves attached to two black sleeves, all with a faint unnatural glow to them. He tried to turn his head to get a look at his kidnapper, but it was too hard to get a good angle.

A significant amount of time passed as Dick watched the landscape below him go by. He tried to keep a mental map of where they were going, but they flew in or above the clouds a great deal of the time, making it difficult. Every so often he would ask a question or throw an insult, trying to get a response, but his captor did not speak again during the flight.

Far from the city, they descended into an isolated clearing in the middle of a forest. Dick stumbled as they hit the ground and his captor let him go. He fell forward onto his hands and knees. He quickly flipped around to his feet and faced the one who had kidnapped him, and forgot to breathe. A ghost. Never mind that he had never seen a ghost before - didn't even believe they were real - something deep in his gut just knew. The glowing, white-haired, red-eyed boy floating a couple inches off the ground and emitting a cold aura that Dick had previously attributed to the altitude they were flying at was a ghost.

His shock only lasted a moment as once again his training kicked in. Before he could make a move however, he felt a second cold presence behind him even though he hadn't seen anyone else there. Dick's world flashed red for a split second, then everything went black.

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AN: Ok, spent a weekend sick writing. Probably should have waited until I was better to actually proof it and so forth, and I'm breaking my own rules posting before the story is mostly written (although I do have another chapter or two done). But, I have had this idea in my head forever and am glad to finally be getting it out there.


	2. Chapter 2

"Master Dick, which do you think Master Wally might prefer for dinner tonight? The chicken or the veal?" Alfred asked, assuming the response would be both as Master Wally had an unusually large appetite. When the only answer was silence, he called "Master Dick?" curiously. He glanced in the rear view mirror to check on his charge, who was most likely completely absorbed in some frivolous game or other on his cell phone.

The limo screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, nearly getting rear ended. Alfred leapt out of the car, surprisingly swift for his age, and looked backwards down the road but did not see any sign of young Master Dick. He opened the rear door of the limo, and similarly found no hint of what had happened there. No clue except that Master Dick was gone, without a sound and without a trace. Alfred paid the car honking behind him no heed as he swiftly re-entered the limo and dialed a number that was to be used only in the direst of emergencies.

Two hours later an exhausted Alfred was back at the manor, surrounded by a team of police detectives who were investigating Dick's abduction. It had been an agonizing, if quick, decision for Bruce to have Alfred involve the police as if this were a normal – or relatively normal for Gotham – kidnapping instead of keeping it quiet and having Batman and/or the League handle it. Despite the apparently supernatural method of Dick's disappearance, Bruce didn't have any reason to believe either his or Dick's secret identities had been compromised, and therefore it would be suspicious to not report it to the police.

Alfred had also luckily had just enough time to warn a confused Wally off from arriving at the house in the midst of the milling police officers. Explanations to him would have to wait. Not that much progress was being made at the manor in the meantime.

Bruce was similarly being questioned by detectives in his hotel suite in Coast City while a phone tap was set up in case kidnappers called. He desperately wanted to return home and search for Dick himself, but if this were a kidnapping for ransom the police had a point that the kidnappers most likely knew where Bruce was and how to contact him, so better he stay there for the moment. Not that Bruce had done nothing. Before the police had arrived, he had contacted the League and asked J'onn and Zatara to quietly start investigating.

After several hours, Bruce finally managed to slip away from the detectives into another room of the hotel suite by feigning the need to lie down for awhile due to the stress of the Dick's disappearance. Once he was sure he was in no danger of being overheard, he was able to check in with Martian Manhunter via his JLA communicator.

"J'onn, what's your status?" Bruce cut right to the chase.

"We have investigated the scene and found nothing of note. Red Tornado has retrieved the traffic camera footage but a preliminary look at it has not revealed anything as yet," J'onn responded quickly.

Zatara then took the communicator. "There is no sign of a portal or spell being used. There is an unusual residual aura about the car that I can't identify, but it is not magical."

"The police have not made any progress, either," Bruce responded gravely. "The only thing we have to go on is the suspicious timing of Dick's disappearance. This isn't just any business meeting I'm at. This new energy source could revolutionize the world, and the owner has requested that all buy-out offers be made in person by the CEOs of their companies or they won't be considered. He is supposed to make his decision by Sunday evening. This could be a plot to get me out of the running by pulling my attention elsewhere."

"So perhaps one of your competitors? Any idea which one?" J'onn had taken the communicator back.

"It seems that everyone who is anyone in the technology world is here for this. My top suspect of course would have to be Lex Luthor, but the owner has already made it fairly clear he doesn't approve of Lex's business practices and won't sell to him no matter what. I'm not sure that a move like this would do him any good."

"Even so, I'll have Superman start looking into Lex's activities right away," J'onn interjected.

Bruce sighed. "Fine, but stress to him that the JLA involvement has to be kept secret for now, at least until we've been officially asked to intervene. He's not always the most subtle."

"Understood." Bruce could practically hear the Martian's wry grin.

"Actually, because of the need for secrecy and the large number of targets, I also recommend you activate the Team to do surveillance." Bruce then proceeded to list off the other companies looking to place bids. One in particular caught Manhunter's attention. "Oliver is there as well?"

"He is." Bruce said flatly.

"I assume that crosses at least one competitor off the list," J'onn attempted a lighter tone.

"For now Queen Industries can be at the bottom of the list of suspects, but it's always possible someone under Queen has orchestrated this without his knowledge. Let's not overlook any possibility."

"Understood," Manhunter said again, in a contrite tone. "We we will be heading back to watchtower shortly."

"Good, but as soon as you have things squared away there I want you to head back to Gotham and keep an eye on Wayne Enterprises. As I said, I don't want to overlook any possibility. This may be less about someone else winning the bid than my losing it. Additionally, I suspect Commissioner Gordon will call on Batman within the next 24 hours if no progress is made in the case, and Batman will need to be there."

"Very well."

Before Bruce could disconnect, Zatara threw in one last question. "What if this has nothing to do with your business deal?"

There was a short pause before Bruce answered stoically, "We don't have anything else to go on right now." Then the transmission ended.

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AN: I can't believe how much of a response just one short chapter got. Thank you to all the followers, favorites, and reviewers! My chapters do tend to be short, but hopefully will be frequent. I know this one didn't get to the part your all waiting for, but there will be better action coming very soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Dick's head was in a world of throbbing pain. That was the first thing he was aware of. The second was that he was lying on his back on a cold metal floor. That unusual fact brought him to alertness as he remembered being kidnapped by what he could only describe, as loathe as he was to do so, as a ghost. He resisted moving or opening his eyes for a moment, trying to assess his situation without giving away to any would-be captors that he was awake.

He obviously wasn't still outdoors, as evidenced by the metal floor and the stale recycled smell of the air. The only sound was a faint electric hum. Dick was surprised to realize he wasn't restrained in any way, although his school jacket, tie, watch, belt, and shoes were missing. Time to look around then.

He slit his eyes open, involuntarily wincing at the bright fluorescent light coming from flat panels on the high ceiling above him. As his eyes adjusted, he took in what he could see without moving of the featureless gray metals walls and ceiling. Not noticing anyone else right way, he sat up with a groan, his head threatening to explode again with the motion. He didn't think he had a concussion, but whatever had been done to him left quite a hangover

Dick froze as he noticed a large bluish-white glowing cube taking up the middle of the room. There was nothing else in the room, not a single window or door. The walls of the cube were semi-transparent, probably a force-field of some sort, with the energy appearing to flow like a cascade down the sides. The hum he had heard seemed to be coming from it.

Carefully he managed to get to his feet. He made his way across the room slowly, swaying a bit as the pain still disoriented him. He came up to the closest glowing wall and cautiously put a hand against it. It was solid, as he expected, and a slight static charge raised the hairs on his arm.

He examined the force field, noting it appeared to be a solid cube, but as his gaze fell to the floor of it his eyes went wide. He hurried to the far side, where a human figure had been mostly concealed by the bright glow of the floor it was curled up on. Once he was closer, Dick could see that it was a teenage boy with dark hair, dressed in jeans and a red-and-white t-shirt. He was motionless but breathing, Dick noted with relief.

Dick pressed both hands against the wall of the cage and called out softly, the raspiness of his voice surprising him, "Hey. Hey, are you ok?" He cleared his throat and tried again, a little louder, "Hello, are you ok?"

With a low moan, blue eyes slowly flickered open. The boy suddenly raised his head and grasped at his neck. That's when Dick saw the dark gray metal collar with dim red lights around the boy's neck. Dick startled. It looked very similar to the inhibitor collars they used on the meta-criminals at Belle Reve. He evaluated the room one more time, but this was definitely not Belle Reve.

The boy clawed at the collar for a moment, then let his head fall back to the floor with a groan. After a second, his eyes opened again and flicked around the room until they landed on Dick. They boy's eyes seemed to fill with some emotion Dick couldn't quite identify, maybe sadness or pain. Then he turned away from Dick and curled back up into a tight ball, arms tucked in, knees to his chest, head down.

"Hey, who are you? What is this place?" Dick asked. He walked along the outside of the cube, until he was angled so he could almost see the boy's face again. The boy did not answer or move. The pain in Dick's head was catching up to him once more, so he slid to the floor next to the glowing wall of the cage. "Do you have any idea what's going on here?" he called out futilely.

Dick put his head in his hands and massaged his temples. "My name's Dick. What's yours?" Still no reaction, but Dick would not be deterred. "How long have you been here? How did you get here?" He paused after every question to see if there was any response, then went on when there wasn't. "I was grabbed out of a moving car, by… well, by what I can only describe as a ghost. Not that I believe in ghosts, but if there were ghosts, that would be what is was. Is that how you got here too?" A shudder went through the boy's body.

After nearly half an hour of rambling on, Dick had yet to get any further response from the boy. He let his head fall forward against the glowing wall in defeat, only to regret it when the static charge it generated sent renewed pain through him. He let himself fall backward and lay down on the floor next to the cube, but didn't take his eyes off the boy.

"Me and my best friend were supposed to be home playing the new release of Doomed by now. Do you know how much this sucks?" he lamented. Dick almost missed it, but the boy twitched at the mention of the video game. "Do you play Doomed? This latest one is supposed to be the most awesome yet. We were going to play all weekend until we beat it." Dick gave a grim chuckle. "Guess my weekend's shot now though, huh?" The boy's head had come up a bit and his blue eyes were now focused on Dick.

Despair. Dick could now name the emotion he saw in the boys eyes – pure, raw despair. He had seen it more often than he would have liked on victims of horrible crimes he encountered during his career as Robin.

"It will be all right, you know," he said, trying to reassure himself as much as the boy. "They – whoever they are – can't just leave us down here forever. I mean, maybe they could, but I'm betting that would defeat the point of keeping me here. They could have just as easily killed me," he concluded with a shrug.

The boy uncurled before muttering quietly, "It seems like _I've_ been here forever." He finally sat up and ran his hands through matted messy black hair that Dick wasn't sure had ever seen a brush. The boy's face was tight and his downcast eyes had dark circles under them. His clothes were dirty and bruises were visible on the bare parts of his arms. The boy was probably a year or two older than Dick, but it was hard to be sure. "But if the new Doomed was released today, it's only been two months," the boy continued with a resigned sigh.

He looked up, with a slight tilt of his head. "You're awfully calm for someone who's just been kidnapped." The hint of curiosity in the boy's voice gave Dick hope that his despair wasn't as total as it seemed.

Dick also sat up, to better see the boy. He gave a sardonic grin. "Well, when you've been kidnapped as many times as I have, you kind of get used to it. Not that it's ever been quite like this before." He gave an exaggerated look around the room. "Usually I'm tied to a chair with a bag over my head and some thugs with guns or bats are threatening to hurt me unless Bruce gives them two million dollars."

The boy's forehead creased as he frowned at Dick. "Seriously?"

Dick nodded, "Yep."

"How many times?"

Dick paused, thinking. "You know, I've actually lost count. How sad it that."

"And does he pay them?"

The question seemed odd to Dick at first, as he couldn't imagine Bruce, or any parent for that matter, choosing not to if they could. But the truth was, it rarely came time for a ransom to actually be paid. "I'm usually rescued by the police or Batman before that becomes necessary."

The boy shook his head and put it down against his knees. "Well, that's not going to happen here."


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce's respite from police questioning had been very brief, not giving him time to do much but coordinate the JLA search. Alfred had not been able to get away to the Batcave to do anything either, since the Gotham police were questioning him as a potential suspect. While Commissioner Gordon knew Alfred would never do any such thing, Alfred was the last person with Dick before he disappeared and Gordon had to do his due diligence.

It was a frustrating hour before Bruce could get away again. During his previous break, he had managed to quickly log in to the Batcave's computer remotely to check on the tracking devices Dick had had on him at the time. He had had only time to note that they were no longer functioning. Now that he had a bit longer, he was able to access the tracking logs.

Dick had two different tracking devices on him at the time he was kidnapped – one in his belt and one in his watch. The tracking devices, which Dick wore specifically as Dick Grayson (he had a different, more secure one as Robin, that wasn't always active), had both shown him leaving the Gotham to the west at a rate of speed too high for a car, and had both cut off an hour later in the middle of a State Park, many miles from anything other than trees.

Bruce pounded his fist against the desk he was sitting at. Both trackers being disabled nearly simultaneously boded very ill. Someone knew to expect tracking devices and took pains to find them and disable them. They were state-of-the-art, waterproof, and nearly indestructible. Nothing could have disabled them without deliberate intent except Dick getting thrown in a vat of acid or pool of lava. Bruce shuddered and quickly discarded those thoughts as unproductive.

His first instinct was to send the Flash and Superman to look over the area because they could get there quickly, and between Flash's experience with forensics and Superman's X-ray vision, they were best suited to finding something, if there was anything to be found. Bruce growled under his breath. There was no way to know if someone was watching that location to see who showed up. It was still too soon for the Justice League to be obviously involved, and those two would be very obvious. Martian Manhunter would have to take a detour since he was already nearby in Gotham and could be inconspicuous.

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Wally was pacing from one end of his house to the other repeatedly. It was Friday afternoon and he should have been in Gotham right now, three levels into Doomed with his best friend. Instead, when he was halfway there, he had gotten a brief and cryptic phone call from Alfred telling him – ordering him actually (albeit politely) – to go straight home and wait there until his Uncle showed up to explain things. _That_ was _not_ a good sign.

Wally's thoughts kept racing around in circles, matching his pacing. If Dick was merely held up with Robin duties, Alfred would have let him come and wait at the Manor. If Robin was called away to assist Batman, Alfred would have taken the time to explain Dick was busy and would call when he was available. If something had happened to Robin, you would think Alfred would have encouraged Kid Flash to come faster to help out. Unless it was something Alfred felt was too big for Kid Flash to handle… he could be overprotective of his younger charges at times. But he still might have explained. UnlesssomethingreallybadhadhappenedtoRobin? No, no, the more likely possibility is that Dick got held up with Dick duties of some kind at the Manor and didn't want Wally in the way. But then why wouldn't Alfred have explained that andwhywouldUncleBarryhavetocomeexplainittohim?

And of course, Wally had tried reaching Dick by both cell phone and team communicator to no avail. He thought about calling the Cave to see if anyone there knew anything, but was undecided because this involved their civilian identities, which the Team still didn't know for Robin, and if this had nothing to do with Super business then he could be opening a can of worms.

With a whoosh of wind, the door opened and closed so fast that no normal person would have been able to see it and suddenly the Flash was standing in Wally's living room. "Wally?" Flash called as he skidded to a stop. Before he had finished the word, Wally was in front of him.

"Where'sDick?What'sgoingon?IsDickok?" Wally blurted so fast the older speedster could barely follow him.

The Flash pulled back his hood so he could look Wally is the eyes. "Whoa, Wally, slow down a second," Barry said, placing his hands on the teen's shoulders. It took all of Wally's self control to stand still. "Dick has gone missing."

"Missing? How? What happened?" Wally would have already been running to Gotham if Barry hadn't still had hold of him.

"Look, all we know is that he was riding home in the limo with Alfred one minute, and then gone the next. No one has seen any sign of him since then and there's been no ransom call yet."

Wally was looking at Barry with wide eyes. "Well, you know, he does that all the time, right?" Wally's voice was slightly high. "Robin does that. The guy can be standing right next to you, and you turn away for half a second and he's just vanished."

Barry shook his head slowly. "Do you know of any reason he'd take off on his own?" His eyes narrowed as he searched Wally's face for an answer.

"Well… no," Wally admitted reluctantly.

Barry sighed. "I'm sorry, Wally. Bruce's best theory is that one of his company's competitors kidnapped Dick in order to keep Bruce out of the business deal he's been working on."

The younger speedster started to pull away. "Well, let's go see what we can find! I should be in Gotham searching for Dick…"

"Half the JLA is out looking for clues right now," Barry interrupted. "But we don't have a lot to go on. Gotham PD has the Manor locked down and are also all over the area where Dick disappeared and his school where he was last seen by anyone but Alfred. Gotham is as well covered as it can be without Batman actually being there."

"But I have to do something!" Wally pleaded with his Uncle.

Barry nodded. "I know, Kid, and if you can stay calm enough I do have an assignment for you."

"Anything, I'll do anything."

"The Team has been tasked with surveillance of Wayne Enterprises' competitors. I'd like you to be on one of those teams, but you have to be able to control your emotions. You can't let anyone else on the team realize this is personal for you. It has to be just another mission, or you may be jeopardizing Robin's secret identity. Do you understand?"

Wally gave a shaky nod. "I understand." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I can do it. I want to do my part."

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AN: Thank you to all the reviewers and new (and continued) followers/favorites!


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you have any idea where 'here' is?" Dick asked. The boy's face tensed, as if the mere thought pained him, but he didn't look up. Dick mentally filed that away as a probable 'yes', but the boy was obviously skittish about certain subjects. He needed to go slowly and gain his trust. Time to get back on (hopefully) safer ground again. "I know I said this before, but in case you didn't catch it, my name is Dick. What's yours?"

There was pause long enough that Dick was beginning to think he wouldn't answer when the boy finally mumbled, "Danny."

"Danny," Dick repeated in relief at getting an answer. "Where are you from?"

"Amity Park," Danny said, still talking into his knees, but at least he was talking. Dick had never heard of Amity Park before, so that didn't shed any light on their current situation. But keeping Danny talking was the main goal at the moment.

"I'm from Gotham," Dick supplied, even though Danny didn't ask. When the silence started to stretch on too long again, Dick asked, "I wonder if we've ever run into each other in Doomed. What was your screen name?" Danny tilted his head to the side so he could see Dick, opened his mouth to start to answer, then quickly closed it again and slammed his head back down against his knees with a groan. Dick's eyebrows rose. "Ok… not the right question."

Just then Dick's stomach gave a loud growl, causing him to wince self-consciously. He hadn't eaten anything since lunch at school who-knew-how-many-hours ago. "Hey, do they ever feed us here?" Dick asked lightly.

Danny shrugged in answer. "Sometimes."

That was not very reassuring to Dick. "Great," he responded sarcastically.

Frustrated with the one word or less answers, Dick decided to give up on engaging Danny for the moment. Instead, he began working his way around the outside of the room, examining the walls, trying to find a way out: some kind of panel, door, sliding hatch – anything. Once he had been around the whole room twice he began methodically examining the floor in a similar manner.

When he once more got near the glowing cube, he noticed Danny was focused on him again. As he caught Dick's eyes, Danny said, "You're not going to find a way out. The ghosts phase down through the ground and through the walls to get in here."

This was the most Danny had spoken the entire time Dick had been here. Telling himself to be calm and not react suddenly lest Danny become silent again, Dick went with the second most pressing question that came to mind at Danny's statement. "We're underground?" Dick had had no idea since he had been unconscious when he was brought in and there weren't any windows or doors.

Danny gave a short nod. "Completely sealed in."

Standing up, Dick paused in thought, staring at the walls. "But we can breathe. Wouldn't we run out of air eventually?"

Danny motioned offhandedly toward the wall of his cage. "In addition to making a nifty cell, the gh… glowing shield here produces small amounts of oxygen as a byproduct."

Dick reached out to the force field, again feeling the static charge and watching the bluish-white energy arc beneath his hand. He had never seen technology quite like this before. "How do you know?"

Danny reached up to nervously rub the back of his neck, but quickly put his hand down again when he instead touched the metal collar. "My parents sort of invented the first prototype for it. It's been heavily modified from their design, though." He trailed off at the end and didn't elaborate. That brought more questions to mind about who Danny was and who his parents were, but Dick could already tell that line of questioning would just go unanswered.

Dick looked at the older teen speculatively for a moment and, deciding to change his strategy, he started closely examining the outside of the force field cell, especially where it touched the metal floor.

"So…," Dick tried to keep his tone casual. "Since I'm out here and you're in there, I'm assuming there's a reason you're kept inside this force field and wearing an Inhibitor Collar." He made sure he was positioned to see Danny's reaction, although he didn't look directly at him.

Danny recoiled, a hand reflexively coming up to his neck. "You know what this is?"

Dick didn't look up at Danny, although he kept him in the corner of his eye. "It looks like an Inhibitor Collar. There's a prison called Belle Reve where criminals who have special abilities – meta-humans – are sent. They make the prisoners wear them to block their powers," he said as if this were common knowledge. Which in some circles it was, although those tended to mostly be superhero circles.

"Huh," was all Danny said, dropping his hand.

"So… If I got you out of the force field and collar, could you get us out of this room?" Dick stopped his investigation to stand and look intently at Danny. Danny just stared at the floor not answering, his face stoic. Dick frowned. "I'll take that as a 'you could but you won't' for some reason." Danny's eyes flicked back to Dick in minute acknowledgement. Dick sighed in frustration. "What do they have over you?"

"My family and friends." Dick was surprised when Danny actually answered .

"They're threatening to kill them?" It was more a statement than a question. Dick was all too familiar with that sort of situation.

"Worse," Danny muttered under his breath. Dick heard him, although he was pretty sure he hadn't been meant to.

Dick was getting frustrated, and truth be told a bit worried about how long he had been here with no sign of his captors. "But who are 'they'?" he asked more harshly than he meant to. This was not a typical kidnapping at all and it was starting to get to him.

Danny shivered and gave a resigned sigh. "You're about to find out." He curled into a tighter ball, hugging his knees to his chest.


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you telling things you shouldn't, Daniel?" Dick whirled around at the deep echoing voice behind him. He felt the cold starting to radiate through the room before it became visible. It, he, was a figure with the pale blue skin of a dead man, vampire-like fangs, and blazing red eyes. Dick was so transfixed by the face, he barely noted the white suit and cape, although he did note the glow surrounding the figure and the way he hovered in the air. Once again, his gut was screaming that this thing in front of him was a ghost, and no amount of logical reasoning could sway the feeling.

Dick involuntarily took a step back. "No matter," the ghost continued, now staring directly at Dick, "your memory of all this will be erased anyway." Dick's eyes went wide.

"Who are you?" Dick was surprised to hear the tremble in his voice, then decided it was for the best. He was Dick here, not Robin, and this being clearly wanted him to be afraid. Even as he managed to calm his inner self, he let the fear stay on his face.

"Ah, where are my manners? You may call me Plasmius. I, of course, already know who you are, Richard." Plasmius stepped closer to Dick, forcing him to back up to the wall. "How are you settling in? I know it's not much, but it is so hard to find completely secret, cut-off from the rest of the world hiding places on short notice – outside of the Ghost Zone at least, but that would have had its own complications."

"Why am I here? What do you want?" Dick demanded, even if his voice did crack as he asked.

Plasmius's eyes narrowed, "Right to the chase then, shall we?" Plasmius turned with a flourish of his cape to pace the room, giving Dick a little breathing room. "There is a certain stubborn-minded inventor who is being very particular about who buys his company. You, my boy, are merely a tool to help thin out the competition."

"Wait," Dick said, finally putting some of the pieces together. "This is all about some new energy technology Bruce is trying to buy? What do you want with it?" He was going to say "what does a ghost want with it," but he couldn't quite wrap his mind around this being an actual ghost yet.

"Not so much me as my business partners. We have had quite a mutually beneficial relationship of late. So many aligned interests. And I do still owe them for my most prized recent acquisition." Plasmius pulled a fist-sized red crystal from an unseen pocket and held it aloft for Dick to see, but he stared pointedly at Danny as he did so. "Don't you agree, Daniel?" The boy shuddered, but didn't respond.

Dick gasped as he saw the crystal, but quickly covered his reaction. Red Kryptonite. He couldn't be 100% sure without some tests, but he was almost certain that's what it was. He had read about it in Batman's files – the red rock had incredibly random effects on Kryptonians and could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. The gem disappeared back into Plasmius's pocket as quickly as it had appeared.

Dick followed Plasmius's gaze to Danny. Could Danny be a Kryptonian somehow? It would explain the need for an inhibitor collar and force field prison. It shouldn't be possible, but then again, neither was Super Boy.

Dick forced his attention back to the ghost. "So, you're going to blackmail Bruce into backing out of the bid?"

"Well, unfortunately for you, no. It seems that this inventor also wants the buyer of his company to have a particular 'moral character'." Plasmius grimaced at the phrase. "And he is overly sympathetic to a man with a missing and potentially kidnapped child, so is willing to put deciding the sale of his company on hold to accommodate him." Plasmius once more approached, forcing Dick to step back as he invaded his personal space. "However, I think he would be a lot less sympathetic if the situation were a little… different." Plasmius grinned wickedly down at Dick.

"I need you to make a phone call to Bruce Wayne for me, telling him how you couldn't stand the abuse anymore and had to run away. Perhaps you are even thinking of harming yourself to escape from the pain of it all," Plasmius continued. "The police will be recording all incoming calls, waiting for a ransom demand, so that should start the rumors flying nicely. And if that isn't sufficient, then I'm sure finding your nearly dead… perhaps dead?... well nearly dead body at the bottom of a ravine with a note accusing your guardian of some truly heinous acts will do it," he finished dramatically.

Dick shook his head, but before he could get out his refusal to make the phone call, Danny was on his feet at the wall of his cage, yelling. "Plasmius, you said you weren't going to hurt him! You were just going to hold him a couple days then let him go!"

Plasmius gave a nonchalant shrug as he addressed Danny, "Plans change, Daniel. We must be ready to adapt to circumstances as they arise."

Taking the moment when Plasmius appeared distracted by Danny, Dick lunged forward to attack. He leaped, aiming a punch for Plasmius's head, and instead went straight through the ghostly being and landed roughly on the floor.

Plasmius chuckled. "Don't be rash. Your only hope is that Wayne Enterprises is eliminated from consideration immediately. Then perhaps you'll get to leave here mostly intact."

Dick slowly got to his feet. "I won't do it," he said simply.

"Dear boy, you don't have a choice in the matter," Plasmius sneered. "Your guardian may be too hard-headed to control, but you are just a child." He stalked toward Dick, but as he got near the ghost suddenly disappeared. Dick struggled for breath as he felt a coldness seeming to flow into his chest and fill him up, displacing him within his own body, and then the cold turned to burning within him. He fought with everything he had to keep control, used all his training in repelling mental attacks, but this was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Plasmius was too strong.

* * *

AN: I didn't want to leave you all hanging on that high cliff for too long. Here's a slightly lower one for now.

So, there are a few answers starting to come out. Hopefully they make sense and don't disappoint. Special THANK YOU to all the reviewers - did you know reviews are addictive?


	7. Chapter 7

" _I hate stakeouts_ ," Superboy complained over the mental link with Miss Martian.

" _It's not that bad. At least the weather's nice_ ," M'Gann replied. She just barely kept herself from giving a sharp answer to Conner's harrumphing. She knew he preferred action and fighting, but really he got the nicer location this time – out on the lush lawns and gardens of a billionaire's mansion. Meanwhile she was across town behind a dumpster in an industrial park watching a dismal gray building. Either way, though, she had to admit it seemed like they both got the short straw – the lead least likely to yield results – with Amity Park.

" _I wonder what was wrong with Wally_ ," M'Gann said, trying to occupy Superboy with more small talk.

" _What do you mean? I didn't notice anything_."

M'Gann rolled her eyes at his obliviousness, even though he couldn't see her. " _When he got to the cave, he just called me M'Gann_ ," she explained.

" _So? What should he call you?_ " A note of defensiveness crept into his thoughts.

" _Well, you know,"_ M'Gann hesitated, trying to phrase her thought so it wouldn't provoke Conner's jealousy. " _He usually uses a nickname for me – 'Babe' at least. And he just seemed distracted and worried," she hurried on. "Not his usual happy self_."

" _Well, he's always distracted, and we are looking for a kidnapped kid. Maybe he's just worried about that._ "

" _No, this was even before we got the mission briefing_ ," she insisted. " _He was…"_

"Freeze, spook!" M'Gann turned at interruption, startled to find a large gun of some kind with a glowing barrel pointed at her head from 5 feet away. "I said freeze!"

The gun was in the possession of a woman in a high tech black and red armored suit with a faint white aura surrounding it. M'Gann slowly let her camouflage drop so that she was completely visible. "Look, there's been a misunderstanding…" the green-skinned red-head started to say, but was cut off by the woman.

"No, I don't think so. You ghosts may think you control this town now, but I'm still here and I'm going to stop you, whatever it takes!" M'Gann barely dodged a pink energy blast from the gun, quickly floating into the air. "Oh, no you don't!" A board with jets suddenly materialized under the woman's feet and she too rose into the air.

"I'm not a ghost!" M'Gann threw back incredulously at her pursuer.

" _M'Gann, is everything all right?_ " Superboy asked over the mental link.

" _I think I've found something. Or rather, someone's found me_ ," she thought back quickly. She flew low over the grounds, trying to lose her pursuer by decreasing her density to pass through object that the other woman would have to go around.

Coming out the other side of an unoccupied maintenance building, M'Gann appeared to have lost her pursuer when a blast from overhead caught her off guard. It hit her square in the back, throwing her to the ground and momentarily stunning her. The black and red figure came to hover over her. "Now I've got you." With her off-hand, the woman pulled out a silver cylindrical object and flipped the lid off, pointing it at Miss Martian.

M'Gann flinched away as a beam of blue light shot out of the device at her, but nothing happened as the light harmlessly surrounded her. The light stopped and the woman looked at the cylinder in shock. "What the?" She shook her head then. "Oh well, I guess we have to do this the hard way then."

M'Gann used the temporary distraction to take off again. She didn't get far when she felt something wrap around her ankle, tugging her back to the ground again. A silver metal cord stretch taut back to the armored woman's arm. Electricity started to arc down the line, causing M'Gann to cry out in pain.

Suddenly there was a guttural yell and the woman was tackled off her hover board by a black blur. The armored woman landed on the ground on her back, stunned, as Superboy landed several blows. Superboy was on top of her poised to deliver a finishing punch when M'Gann yelled "No!" Superboy hesitated. " _We need to question her!_ " she explained over the mental link as she disentangled herself from the wire.

Superboy didn't move. "She hurt you," he growled.

M'Gann stood up and walked over to them. "I'm fine, really. I think we may just have a case of mistaken identity."

The woman was regaining her senses and tried to push Connor off, but even with her strength-enhancing suit was unable to budge him. The woman finally took stock of her subduer and cocked her head to the side, looking at the symbol on Conner's shirt. "You're… you're… you're not Superman," she said with some confusion.

Superboy gritted his teeth, "No, I'm not."

She gave a frustrated snort. "Look, whoever you are, it's my job to protect this town from ghosts. Now get out of my way so I can get rid of that one!"

Superboy's eyes narrowed. "Does she look like a ghost to you?" he asked, gesturing at where M'Gann stood behind him.

"Oh, let's see. Green skin, flies through walls, turns invisible… yeah, I think so," she finished with sarcasm as she glared defiantly back at him.

"I'm a Martian, not a ghost. Ghosts don't even exist, right?" Miss Martian piped up, putting a hand on Connor's shoulder to keep him from harming their antagonist. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, Superboy let M'Gann pull him off the woman.

"Martian? Yeah, right," the woman scoffed as she got to her feet. "You can't fool me. My ghost radar can track…" she glanced down at a computer screen attached to her wrist gauntlet, "any ghost…," she hit she screen once as she broke into mumbling, "you…" She looked up, startled. "You really aren't a ghost?"

Miss Martian broke into a small grin. "No, I'm not. I'm Miss Martian and this is Superboy."

All of the woman's weapons retracted and vanished into the suit. "Like Superman and Martian Manhunter?"

Superboy frowned more, but M'Gann quickly chimed in, "Well, sort of. Martian Manhunter is my uncle. We work with the Justice League."

"Huh." The simple word contained a lot of surprise. "And what are superheroes doing lurking around outside Axion labs?"

"That's none of your business," Superboy answered brusquely.

The woman 's voice turned hard. "Oh, it is my business when I'm the one protecting this town from threats you don't seem to even know exist."

"Wait," Miss Martian interrupted. "You said ghosts though. Ghosts that can be invisible and fly through walls?"

"Yeah."

"Can they do that with other people too?" M'Gann glanced at Conner significantly.

* * *

The phone rang, showing an unknown number. The police who had been milling about crowded into the hotel room, two quickly sitting at computers to start the recording and to trace the call. Bruce Wayne took a deep, calming breath before answering it with trepidation, "Hello."

There was a long pause on the end of the line before a familiar though strained voice answered, "Bruce?"

"Dick! Thank god! Are you all right?" Bruce couldn't contain his anxiety or tentative relief at hearing Dick's voice.

Another pause, and was that a sniffle? "Not really."

"What's going on? Where are you?"

"I… I can't do it anymore, Bruce."

Bruce's heart dropped into his feet. "What can't you do?"

There was definitely a sniffle this time, and Dick's voice sounded rough as if from crying. "I can't go on like we have been. Living the way we have. I'm tired of having to hide things from everyone around me, pretend to always be the happy, carefree son of a billionaire." Bruce glanced at the police officers nearby. Dick couldn't be implying what it sounded like.

"The things you do… I can't stand it anymore. I'm not going to let you control me or hurt me ever again." All eyes in the room were on Bruce, most wide with horror.

"Dick, what are you talking about?" An edge of panic crept into Bruce's voice.

"I thought running away would be enough, to get away from that life with you, the pain, but it isn't."

"Where are you? Let me help you." Bruce pled, desperate.

"No, I'm…," his voice cracked. "I'm going to end this for good. You never get to touch me again," Dick said with finality. The call cut off.

"Dick!" Bruce shouted futilely into the phone.

Bruce wanted to yell, to crush the phone in his hand, to let his anger and panic out, but he just managed to contain himself. He turned to one of the officer's seated nearby. "Did you manage to trace the call?" he demanded.

The officer shook his head, "No, I'm sorry, sir. The call was routed through several different locations. I didn't have time to trace it all the way back to its source."

Bruce did slam the phone down then, grinding his teeth in frustration.

The lead detective, who had been listening in on the call, walked over to Bruce with a determined swagger. "Mr. Wayne, I believe we have some more questions to ask you."

"I need to make a phone call first." Bruce's voice was tight.

The detective nodded with a frown. "That's fine, as long as it's to your lawyer."

* * *

AN: So, I don't think that first part was necessarily my best work, but hopefully it's good enough. Small cliffs here, have to keep the story exciting. Thank you for some awesome reviews everyone!


	8. Chapter 8

Danny distantly yelling. A dizzy cold feeling. Sky and trees. The sound of Bruce's voice. Dick still struggled, but it was all so far away and he couldn't do anything about it. Then the cold again.

"Well, let us wait and see how that goes over, shall we?" jeered Plasmius, his voice disturbingly close as Dick came back to his senses. Dick stumbled, dizzy, and collapsed to the ground.

"Dick! Dick, are you ok?" Danny was standing at the edge of the cube closest to Dick, pounding a fist against the force field futilely.

Dick put a hand to his head and squeezed his eyes closed tight, "Not asterous, not asterous at all…" he mumbled. He was sitting on the floor, breathing hard, trying to focus and remember what had happened. A spike of fear went through him as he recalled the blue-skinned figure and his threats, but when he looked up Plasmius was gone.

"That…," Dick had trouble getting the words out. "That was a ghost?" True, Dick had been brought here by what seemed to be a ghost, but he had half-convinced himself he had been overreacting. This second one, however, was far more frightening than the ghostly teen had been.

Danny stilled and pressed a hand up against the force field as if he wanted to reach out to the younger boy. "Yes. It was," he answered softly.

Calling on his training, Dick slowly reined in his rapid breathing and pounding heartbeat. When he opened his eyes again he appeared much calmer even if his mind was still racing. "What did he do to me?"

"He overshadowed you. He took control of your body."

"Ghost possession?" Dick asked, disbelieving, even if it had just happened to him.

Danny bit his lip. "Yeah. Do you remember what happened while he was in control?"

Dick shook his head slowly. "Not really. Just bits and pieces." His eyes went wide with a little gasp, "He made me tell Bruce that I was going to…"

"Yeah." Dick didn't need to finish the sentence for Danny. Plasmius had laid it out pretty well beforehand.

Dick started to hyperventilate again. "I… I couldn't stop him… I tried! But I couldn't stop him…" He had rarely felt so completely helpless as he had when Plasmius overshadowed him, and it unnerved him.

"He's powerful. The fact that you remember anything about it at all shows how much you fought him," Danny tried to reassure him. "Usually people don't even remember being overshadowed. Although, maybe that would be better in some ways…"

"That really puts the 'dis' in 'turbing'," Dick said as he tried to regain his composure, the word play helping put him back in a more Robin mindset. He had dealt with super-powered beings, aliens, clones, and more before. Surely he could handle ghosts, too. Of course, those encounters had almost always been as Robin. He felt particularly vulnerable at the moment as just Dick Grayson.

He ran a hand over his face and collected his thoughts. "That ghost, Plasmius, he wasn't the one who kidnapped me in the first place. So, there's at least two of them."

Danny slid down to the floor and sat cross-legged, facing Dick. "Yeah, more than that actually, but only Plasmius comes down here. He doesn't allow any others."

Seeing Dick in such a vulnerable state must have triggered some protective reflex in Danny, Dick noted, since Danny was actually answering his questions now instead of retreating into himself. "Why not? Why wouldn't he post a guard or something?" Dick pressed.

"Most of them aren't working for him willingly and even those that are aren't the most loyal or intelligent. He's afraid I'll trick one of them into helping me escape." Danny frowned and absently touched the collar around his neck again. "Besides, he doesn't feel he needs to, what with all this." He gestured around the room.

"What does he want with you?" Dick knew this was the area of questioning most likely to make Danny silent again, but he pressed his luck anyway.

Sure enough, Danny's expression grew distant. "It's complicated…" he sighed and stopped. He seemed like he wanted to say more, but then he clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. "I'm not even really sure anymore."

Dick took the hint and changed the subject back before Danny clammed up altogether. "So, do you know the ghost that took me? Younger looking, white hair, black suit with white gloves."

Dick realized he had probably hit upon another sore subject as the other boy paled and looked like he might be sick. Danny swallowed hard but answered, "Phantom."

Danny's despondent reaction to the mention of the teen ghost kept Dick from chuckling, but he couldn't help saying, "Not the most original name for a ghost."

Danny gave a wry smile, although he still didn't meet Dick's eyes. "No, I guess not."

"And this Phantom is what? Working for Plasmius?"

Danny let out a defeated sigh. "Yeah, sort of. Phantom is one of the not willing ones. He used to be sort of a hero – fighting other ghosts and protecting humans. But now, Plasmius controls him and the other ghosts with that red stone he showed you. "

"That's what it does?" Dick asked as his eyebrow knit together. He had never heard of Kryptonite that could control ghosts before, even if it did have some mind altering effects on Kryptonians. Then again, he hadn't had any evidence that ghosts were real before all of this either.

Danny gave a jerky nod. "Plasmius has total control over the ghosts when he uses it. There's no fighting it."

Dick let a shudder run through him as he contemplated everything that had happened. "I don't suppose Plasmius is the kind who won't follow through on his threats? Maybe he's just bluffing about leaving me mostly dead in a ditch somewhere?" Dick said without any real hope in it.

"He won't do it himself. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty if he can help it." Danny closed his eyes and hung his head. "He'll make Phantom do it."

They sat there in silence for a minute, then Danny took a deep breath and looked up at Dick. "Do you really think you can get me out of this cage?"

Dick was startled by the question. "Yeah, I think so."

Danny gave a short nod. "Ok, I'll help you get out." He ran a hand through his hair nervously. "If you can get me out of this cage, I can get us out to the surface. I'm not sure what our chances are from there though."

"I'll take that chance," Dick quickly accepted. "But what changed?" he asked, although he could guess based on Danny's outburst at Plasmius earlier.

"I…," Danny stumbled over the words. "I don't want anyone else getting hurt." Dick noticed a tear starting in the corner of Danny's eye, but he quickly wiped it away. "I don't want anything to happen to my family, but I can't just stand by and let you get hurt either if there's a chance I can help. You don't deserve this."

* * *

AN: Ok, honestly I'm not completely happy with this chapter, but after days of reworking it, it'll have to do. Thank you to everyone who has left a review!


	9. Chapter 9

Wally did not like sitting still. Unfortunately it was frequently required in his line of work, so he had learned to cope, vibrating quietly and unobtrusively in place. Or at least he thought he was being discreet. "Cut it out, Baywatch," Artemis hissed next to him.

"Uh, sorry," he mumbled as he forced himself to stop. All the waiting and watching while his best friend remained missing was driving him crazy. He had taken what his Uncle Barry had told him to heart and tried not to let it show, but it was hard. The briefing had been mercifully short and Robin's absence had been explained away as him already working the case in Gotham with Batman. Wally had been ready to leap into action as soon as it was over.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. They had been staked out outside Stagg Enterprises for half a day now. It was full dark and all the employees had already headed home hours ago with no sign of anything remotely suspicious going on. Also unfortunately, he had been paired with Artemis, who was being more aggravated than normal with him.

"Seriously, Wally, if you don't stop tapping your foot right this second I'm going to put an arrow through your calf." Case in point. Although she was right, he had still been doing that.

"Sorry, speedster here. Trouble sitting still comes with the territory. What's gotten into you?" he asked, far more irritation in his voice than he had intended. He really didn't do well at hiding his emotions.

"Nothing," she snapped back, equally exasperated. They sat in tense silence for a couple more minutes before Artemis relented and turned to Wally. "Look, can you keep a secret?" she said in a much more apprehensive voice.

Her tone caught him off guard. "Sure," Wally said, all his attention on Artemis now.

"I know him. The kid we're looking for," she clarified. "Dick Grayson. He goes to my school. We're not great friends or anything, but I've talked to him a few times." She paused, an unusual amount of insecurity in her eyes. "It just makes it different when you know them. Do you know what I mean?"

Wally sat there open mouthed for a second as his brain fought over a hundred different things to say in response. Artemis knew Dick?! "Rob never said…" he started to blurt out, then halted himself. Artemis cocked her head expectantly, waiting for him to finish the sentence. "You… you go to Gotham Academy. You said you go toschoolwithDickGraysonwhichmeans you gotoGothamAcadamy," Wally finally babbled. "Which means you live in Gotham!"

"Uh, yeah." Artemis bit her lip uncertainly. "You know, the whole secret identity thing, though."

"But Green Arrow is based in Star City," he insisted.

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Well, Uncles and sidekicks can live in different cities, right?"

Wally started to open his mouth to protest, then realized what she was implying. "Uh, oh. Right," he said sheepishly.

"Anyway," Artemis pursed her lips in worry, "Grayson is a goofy little troll, but he's not bad. I'd just hate to see anything happen to him, you know?"

"Yeah, I totally get it," Wally agreed softly.

* * *

The police had briefly considered taking Bruce down to the station, but decided against it due to the media circus that was likely to ensue and the fact that they were still not sure if this was a kidnapping or not. Dick's call would seem to indicate it was not, but could a 13 year old kid really have routed the call so the police couldn't immediately have traced it? The lead detective, however, seemed to think it was feasible for a "very smart super-rich kid" to have the means, and when he questioned Bruce about it, Bruce couldn't truthfully deny it was a possibility.

Bruce continued to answer the police's questions while waiting for his lawyer to show up, wanting to appear cooperative, but he was beyond frustrated that he couldn't manage to slip away to get an update from the Justice League or Martian Manhunter.

Just as Bruce was preparing to once again argue he needed a quick break to the restroom, there was a knock at the door of the hotel suite. A nearby policeman opened it and escorted in a tall dark-skinned man dressed in an expensive business suit. He approached Bruce and extended a hand. "Mr. Wayne? I'm Augustus Freeman IV. It's nice to finally meet you in person."

Bruce shook his hand. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

Augustus gave a serious nod, and then turned to the nearby Detective. "Is there a place I can talk to my client privately?"

The Detective motioned toward the bedroom of the suite. "You can talk in there. We have more questions for Mr. Wayne though, so try to keep it brief," he said gruffly.

"Of course," August answered congenially and walked into the bedroom followed by the billionaire.

Bruce sat in an armchair in the corner while Augustus arranged himself at the desk present in the room. Augustus took out a notepad and recorder. "Mr. Wayne, before we begin, I need to state one more time that I typically practice as a corporate lawyer, not a criminal one."

Bruce frowned, "But you are well versed and licensed in criminal law, correct?"

"I am," the lawyer acknowledged with a tilt of his head.

Bruce glanced at the recording device, reassuring himself it was not yet on. His expression became determined as he took a deep breath. "Good. I need you specifically because of the combination of your legal expertise, your discretion, and your ability to convey messages between myself and the Justice League while I'm detained here with the police."

Augustus froze. "I'm not sure I understand," he answered flatly.

"Icon hasn't been voted into the Justice League yet, but you have worked with them on occasion and know how to contact them."

The lawyer leaned back in his seat, studying the man in front of him – a Gothamite with plentiful resources and technology and ties to the Justice League, and with the skills to track him down and find out his secret identity. It didn't take a genius of Augustus's caliber to figure it out. "I see," was all he said.

Bruce conceded Augustus's unspoken conclusion with a nod. "I realize," he continued, "that putting you in this position will reveal your identity to the League, but I'm hoping you will be willing to trust them with that as I am willing to trust you with mine. And Dick's."

"Ah," Augustus's eyes lit up with understanding. "That does put his disappearance… in a new light."

Bruce's face tightened. "He was kidnapped as a civilian, so I acted assuming that the motive for it didn't involve his other identity. Now, though, I'm not sure and I've tied my hands by remaining here with the police. Mr. Freeman, I need to be doing everything in my power to find my son, and I can't do that while I'm here."

"Your ward," Augustus corrected, a stickler for details.

"My son," Bruce snapped back. "In everything except the letter of the law. My son." Bruce ran a hand through his hair with a sigh as he forced himself to calm down. "My priority is using whatever legal means necessary to get the police to let me return to Gotham so I can search for Dick myself. In the meantime, I need you to get a copy of the telephone call recording and the call tracking data to the Justice League to analyze, and let me know what they've found out so far."

"Very well," the lawyer/hero agreed, knowing he would never hear the end of it from his own sidekick if he refused this request for help from Batman.

* * *

AN: So, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Insert generic excuses here about being busy with the holidays. Sorry about the delay.

I don't actually know much about Icon, so I apologize to any fans if he is too OOC or anything, but there just aren't many lawyers in the Justice League stable to choose from. And yes, after Dick's call, Bruce is starting to get desperate.


	10. Chapter 10

Dick stood up from his place on the metal floor and surveyed the room. Time to get traught. Even if he didn't have the mask or the gadgets, it was time to be Robin.

He took one more long look around the room, carefully assessing the layout. "Are they watching us?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," Danny responded, still sitting inside his force field cell. "Everything down here is self-contained, no external connections. Even the power is generated here, with nothing connecting it to the outside world. Someone could only be watching us if they were here."

"And if they're invisible we have no way of knowing." Dick frowned as he considered this snag.

"Well…" Dick looked sharply at the other boy as he hedged. "I can sense when ghosts are nearby. Most of them anyway – it's difficult with Plasmius sometimes, but even with the collar on I should know if any ghosts were here."

Dick raised his eyebrows inquiringly, "And they're not?"

"Right. As far as I can tell. As I said before, Plasmius doesn't allow any of the other ghosts down here anyway."

"I guess that will have to be good enough." And with that, Dick walked to the opposite wall of the metal room, got a running start, and did a magnificent jumping flip that landed him squarely on top of Danny's prison. He slid a little along the smooth surface of the force field and winced at the mild static shock that shot up through his socked feet.

Danny sat there staring, his jaw hanging open a little. Dick barely paused before taking another flying leap toward the ceiling. His hand hit one of the light panels hard, forcing the flat plastic panel up just enough to allow him to grip the metal edge supporting it. He swung there by one hand for a moment, before reaching up to work at the light panel with the other until it was loose. He pulled it out and let it fall to the floor with a clatter. Next was the hard part, because he couldn't see where he was reaching. He worked his hand around inside the light fixture, pulling out some wires and prying a thin length of metal free from the frame, both of which unceremoniously joined the panel on the ground. Then Dick too dropped, hitting the floor with a tuck and roll and ending up on his feet.

Danny shook himself out of his stupor. "Man, I feel like I should applaud or something. That was awesome."

Dick took a little bow and gave a self-deprecating smile. "Well, I did grow up in the circus before Bruce took me in."

"Really?"

He nodded as he picked up the thin metal bar and brought it over to the edge of Danny's cell. "My family were trapeze artists: The Flying Graysons. I used to perform with them."

"Cool."

"What about your family? You mentioned they invented stuff?" Dick quickly changed the subject, not wanting to go into more details about his history at the moment. He bent down to examine the floor.

Danny hesitated before answering. "Well, they invent lots of stuff too, but mostly they're ghost hunters. My parents at least."

Dick stopped and stared at him, "Wow. Does that have something to do with why Plasmius has you here?" A ghost holding a ghost hunters' son captive. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Danny looked for the right words. "It's complicated," he finally muttered.

Dick frowned at the evasion. "But if they're ghost hunters, that means they can defend themselves if Plasmius or Phantom comes after them, right?" he speculated.

Danny gave a big sigh, and Dick noticed the despair creeping back into the other boy's eyes. "Sort of. They'll try, but Plasmius and Phantom are two of the most powerful ghosts outside of the Ghost Zone." Danny bit his lip. "My parents have probably increased their ghost defenses since Phantom attacked them last time though… so, maybe." Danny sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

Dick looked questioningly at him, "Last time?"

Danny tensed, obviously recalling something distressing. His voice shaking, he reluctantly explained, "I wasn't very cooperative when Plasmius first sent me here, so he… he sent Phantom to attack them. My dad the first time. My friends the second." Danny curled into himself again, hugging his knees to his chest, eyes staring widely at nothing but the memory. "I'm not really sure how they are, although I know he didn't kill them, so Plasmius could keep his leverage over me."

Dick stood there, looking at the traumatized teen, unsure what he could say or do to reassure the other boy. From his reaction, Danny had actually seen the attack or some evidence of it afterwards, and he fully expected it to happen again for helping escape with Dick. Sometimes even Robin was at a loss for answers.

* * *

The battered older boy had slipped into a melancholy trance again, not responding to any of the questions or comments Dick threw his way in the past half hour. Dick internally cursed at having pushed the subject. Danny had seemed so much more cooperative once he had decided on a plan of action. Hopefully he hadn't changed his mind.

Dick had returned to his previous task, feeling along the floor, muttering to himself, "Where it is? I know it was here somewhere. Aha!" He grabbed the metal bar, tested how flexible it was, then jammed it against the floor.

"What are you doing?" Danny asked listlessly, but at least finally acknowledging his surroundings again.

"There's a faint seam here in the floor. I think it's an access hatch, if I can just pry it open." With a soft scraping sound, a section of the metal floor shifted a tiny bit as Dick pried at it. "Yes!" he hissed to himself. He quickly forced the thin metal further into the gap and pushed the plate back until there was enough room the grip it with his fingers and slide it all the way off.

"What a mess." Dick stared into the hole with dread. The circuitry looked like it had been assembled by 5-year-olds. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to it at all. He knelt down and leaned in to get a better look. "I don't even recognize half of these components," he said in disbelief, a knot forming in his stomach as he realized this was going to be much harder than he had anticipated.

Danny walked to the closest edge of his cell and tried to peer down into the opening, but it was difficult to see from his vantage point. "If you can describe them to me, I can probably walk you through it," Danny offered. Dick gave a determined nod and smiled, relieved at Danny's resumed willingness to help.

* * *

AN: Thank you to all followers and favorites, and especially to the reviewers! This chapter was going to be twice as long, but I decided to split it to get something up (and it's as long as any of the rest of mine anyway). The good news is the next part is mostly written, just struggling over a few details. No promises, but more should be up soon.


	11. Chapter 11

Two hours later, Dick was still elbow deep in electronics while Danny lounged inside the force field explaining unusual pieces of tech as needed. It was slow going, both because the circuitry was a mess and because they didn't want to just cut random wires or, as Danny put it, "things might go boom". Apparently the power source for this technology was somewhat unstable, although Dick had yet to get his head around the fact that is was supposedly "ectoplasm" powered. He was also keeping in mind that they might want to be able to turn their only source of oxygen back on if they couldn't get out of the room right away, so they were trying to leave it as intact as possible. According to Danny, Plasmius had some sort of remote for the force field, but they didn't have anything like that to work with at the moment.

Dick wiped a hand across his face tiredly. He hadn't eaten or slept (if you don't count being unconscious) in… what had it been? Hard to tell inside this metal box. At least a day, maybe two? He was definitely not operating at his best, but he'd been on missions where he'd gone longer without either.

As Dick carefully picked apart another nest of wires (seriously, who put this thing together, chimpanzees?) he tried to discuss strategy with Danny for when they were topside. According to Danny, they were in the middle of a series of state parks – basically the middle of nowhere. The nearest thing that could be even remotely described as a town was over 20 miles away.

"But, there is a small ranger cabin about 2 miles east of here," Danny described. "There isn't usually anyone there, but there's most likely a radio or something."

"If I can get a call out, I can probably get us help and fast," Dick said, already trying to mentally calculate how long it would take the Flash or Superman to get to them. A few well chosen words to any form of law enforcement, including park rangers, should quickly gain the attention of Batman or the Justice League without necessarily giving away Dick's alternate identity.

"Even two miles is going to be a rough walk without shoes though." Danny morosely glanced down at his own shoeless feet. "Just another thoughtful hindrance from Plasmius," he mumbled under his breath.

"Well," Dick drawled slowly, hesitant to broach the subject again. "I don't suppose you are super-fast or able to fly or anything to get us away from here once we are out?"

Danny looked at him warily before shaking his head. "If I use my powers out there, Plasmius will know, and he can track me if I use them."

Dick gave an unhappy hum of acknowledgment as he worked on a particularly difficult connection, noting Danny's continued avoidance of the topic of exactly what he could do.

"So, what's Batman like?" Dick was startled by the abrupt question, momentarily wondering if he had somehow given himself away already, but Danny hastily went on, "I mean, you said he rescued you when you were kidnapped before. You got to meet him, right? What was he like?"

Dick's tensed form relaxed as he thought about how to answer, absently untwisting two wires. "He was everything you'd think he'd be: dark, mysterious, terrifying. It's hard to get a look at him since he stays in the shadows. He didn't really say much except to ask if I was all right and he vanished as soon as the police showed up," he finished with an uncertain shrug.

Danny was hanging on his every word and seemed disappointed when he didn't say more. "I heard the police have a way of contacting him when they need to?"

"Yep. The Bat Signal." Dick smiled. Not everyone believed such a thing existed until they saw it for themselves. "It's a giant bat-shaped light Commissioner Gordon can shine into the sky when he wants Batman's attention."

Danny nodded and ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Dick," he finally said in such a way that it made Dick look up from the parts he was currently disconnecting. Danny took a quick breath, his face earnest. "When you get out, do you think you could convince the police to talk to Batman and ask him to make sure my family and friends are safe?" Danny babbled in a rush. "They're not in Gotham, but I know he sometimes works elsewhere too and with the Justice League, so they might be able to help somehow. I just don't want anything happening to them and the police aren't going to be able to do anything to stop Plasmius or… or Phantom, when Plasmius finds out I've helped you escape."

Dick blinked at the rapid fire prattle, but working with Kid Flash for as long as he had had given him the skill to grasp the quick words. "Um, sure. Definitely. I can make sure the message gets to Batman. What are their names?"

"Fenton. That's my family – uh, my last name is Fenton. And the friends who need protecting are Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley. They're all in Amity Park." The anxiety in Danny's eyes seemed to ease a tiny bit as Dick agreed and repeated the names back to him to make sure he had them.

Two minutes later, the low buzzing hum that had been constantly in the background since Dick got there slowly died and with it the force field. The two boys' eyes met and Dick grinned. "I can't believe that actually worked," Danny said in shock.

"Of course it worked. I told you I could get you out," Dick said with mock offense.

Danny walked forward slowly, as if he still expected the shield to be there even though he couldn't see it, and finally gave a tentative smile once he reached Dick. "So, you think you can do the collar too?" Danny asked as he reached up toward the metal band around his neck but didn't quite touch it.

"That should be a piece of cake, relatively speaking," Dick said confidently. This was technology he was more familiar with. He turned and retrieved some of the wires he had torn from the light fixture earlier. Danny looked at him incredulously, but didn't say anything. "Hold still," Dick instructed as he stripped the insulation off a couple of the wires and set to work.

Smoking slightly, the collar clicked open and dropped to the floor, followed a moment later by Danny who fell to his hands and knees with a gasp. Dick involuntarily stepped back as Danny groaned and his eyes seemed to flare bright green for a split second before he clenched them shut. Danny's breaths came in short pants as he mumbled, "No, no, no…" There was a brief glow of white light around him, but with a final shudder Danny collapsed completely to the floor and it was gone.

Dick looked on anxiously, unsure what was going on. He took half a step forward uncertainly, before asking, "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," Danny mumbled in a strained voice. He rolled to his side, pressing his hands to his still tightly closed eyes. "My… my powers just really want to rebound after being suppressed for so long." He took several deep breaths then slowly sat up. "I'm ok now," he reassured.

Dick felt his Kryptonian theory slipping away and gave a sigh. "Danny, I really need you to trust me – to tell me everything. The more I know, the better chance we have out there."

The other boy stared at the floor, contemplating his answer, before looking up at Dick with a pained expression. "I can't tell you everything. Right now, if this goes bad, Plasmius might still let you live. There are certain things, if you knew them, he would kill you no matter what. Even though he can erase your memories of everything that happened here, he won't take the chance of you somehow remembering later."

"I'm willing to take that risk if it means a better chance of getting both of us out of here," Dick insisted.

"I'm not," Danny replied vehemently. Dick took a shaky breath at the intensity of Danny's expression and the green flash in his normally blue eyes.

"Fine," Dick ground out, frustration evident in his stiff posture.

Danny slowly got to his feet, his face softening into something more apologetic. "Look, if Plasmius shows up, you need to run. I'll try to hold him off as long as I can, but you just have to get out of there."

Something about the way Danny had been talking about their escape had been bugging Dick for awhile now, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on it until Danny had stated it so bluntly. Danny never said "when we escape", it was always "when you get away" or "when you escape". Danny wasn't planning to get away – or at least, he didn't believe he would. He was solely focused on Dick escaping. "But what about you?" Dick protested.

"He won't kill me. He wants to break me, control me." Danny turned to the nearest wall so Dick couldn't see his face. "The only thing he hasn't done yet is turn me in a murderer," Danny murmured so quietly Dick almost didn't catch it. A little louder, Danny said, "You need to get help and make sure my family and friends are safe. Plasmius will send Phantom after them. You have to warn them." Danny's voice was thick with desperation.

Dick came up behind Danny and put a hand on his shoulder. Danny flinched at the touch, but didn't pull away. "I will, I promise," Dick swore. "But you have to promise you are going to try your best to get away with me. We both need to get out of here." Danny nodded his agreement half-heartedly. Dick decided it would have to be good enough for now.

He took a couple of steps back from Danny. "Right, well our priority right now is just getting out of this box. So, get punching." Dick motioned to the metal wall, waiting for Danny to start tearing it down. Bewildered blue eyes turned to him, then to the wall, and back to Dick.

"Um, that's not exactly what I was going to do." Danny said, rubbing his neck and wincing at the rawness of it where the collar had chafed.

It was Dick's turn to be confused. "What then?"

Danny waved him over to stand in front of the wall with him again. As Dick walked closer, Danny hesitantly held out a hand, which Dick took. "Take a deep breath and stay calm," Danny instructed.

Dick inhaled, and then a cold tingly sensation crept through his hand and up his arm until it enveloped his whole body. He instinctively stopped breathing. Ok, definitely not a Kryptonian. As Danny pulled him _through_ the wall, he realized he recognized this feeling.

* * *

AN: Well, I had thought I'd get this out the next day, but well... eh, sorry. Hopefully it's worth the wait as they are finally escaping. I have to say THANK YOU for all the awesome reviews on the last chapter. When I first saw how many there were only a few hours after I posted, I thought I had been spammed, but no - every one was an actual review. So, Thank You great reviewers!


	12. Chapter 12

" _I don't know if we should be trusting her like this,_ " Superboy said over the mind link to Miss Martian. " _She did attack you._ "

" _That was a misunderstanding,_ " M'Gann insisted. " _Besides, this is the first possible lead anyone has had. We have to check it out._ "

They had found a more out of the way location to talk, although both sides were still somewhat tense. The woman had given them a summary of the peculiar variety of supernatural creatures that infested Amity Park, and Superboy and Miss Martian had explained to the armored woman what had happened to the presumably kidnapped boy, Dick Grayson.

"So, why were you watching Axion Labs?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well," Miss Martian hesitated before deciding to lay all their cards on the table. "Dick Grayson is the ward of the billionaire businessman Bruce Wayne. Mr. Wayne is currently involved in an important business deal, and so we suspected maybe one of his corporate rivals kidnapped him in order to ruin the deal."

The woman in armor stiffened and her tone grew dark, "Vlad Masters? You think he might be involved?"

"It's just one of several possibilities we're working on," M'Gann said, apprehensive at the hostility she suddenly sensed.

The other woman's fists clenched and unclenched slowly. "I certainly wouldn't put it past him." She paused, collecting herself. "All right, first thing we need to do is try to find out exactly what happened. I know someone who may be able to analyze your traffic cam footage for ghostly activity. C'mon."

A hoverboard appeared beneath the armored woman's feet as she hopped into the air. She turned uncertainly back to Superboy. "Can you fly?"

"No," he replied with a scowl.

"Well, you can ride with me if you want." Superboy looked between her and Miss Martian, weighing riding on the hoverboard versus being carried, then leaped up on the board. "Hang on," she said as they took off, back toward the city. As Miss Martian followed, she called the rest of the team to inform them what they were doing and request a copy of the traffic camera footage be brought to their location.

They flew high until they were midway through the city then came down in an empty section of a park. Superboy stepped to the ground and then the hoverboard disappeared from under the woman allowing her to drop the last foot. She looked around to make sure the area was deserted.

Moments later she was startled by a yellow and red blur that sped into the clearing. "Kid Flash delivery, at your service," the new boy joked as he slid to a stop in front of the three, although M'gann noticed the humor was still only superficial.

"He's with us," M'gann quickly explained.

"Yeah, I can see that," the woman responded wryly. She and Kid Flash sized each other up for a moment before the woman shook her head. "Whatever. We're going to walk the last bit. It will be better if we're not too conspicuous," she said, eyeing the Martian and the costumed speedster. She turned to Miss Martian, "You can be invisible again, right?"

"Oh, yes," she quickly replied. "Or I can just do this." M'Gann's skin changed from green to a pale peach and her clothes morphed into a white top with a dark pink skirt and matching sweater. "Does this work?"

"Yeah," the armored huntress said, surprised. "So, what about you?" she began to ask Kid Flash, but before she could finish the sentence he had disappeared in a whirlwind and reappeared wearing jeans and a long sleeve blue t-shirt. He still had his red goggles on over his eyes however. The armored woman tilted her head curiously at them.

"Uh, Wally..." Superboy began.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Kid Flash cut him off. "But I didn't have any sunglasses handy. Maybe we can pick some up along the way."

The woman sighed and waved a hand at him, "You know what? Leave them on. You'll fit right in."

Wally gave her a perplexed look and then shrugged at his team mates.

The woman stared at the heroes uncertainly. "So, I guess as superheroes you're used to the whole secret identity thing, right? Can I trust you with mine?"

"Of course," M'Gann said with a reassuring smile and Wally chimed in with a "Yeah." Conner gave a curt nod.

The black and red armor retracted and swiftly vanished from sight. M'Gann was startled to realize this person was a teenager, probably about the same age as most of the Team. She was a dark-skinned girl with curly hair, wearing yellow and orange. She stared at them for a moment, her green eyes narrowed, daring them to say something about her age or who she was. Then she held out her hand, "I'm Valerie."

* * *

They walked the five blocks to their destination quickly. As they turned the corner for the last block, Superboy looked up perplexed and asked, "What is that?"

"That's where we're going," Valerie said with a resigned sigh. "Just follow my lead, ok?"

"That" was a monstrosity of a building, half brownstone and half U.F.O., with a glaring neon sign on the front reading "Fenton Works." All three of the newcomer's ogled it as they approached.

"Why is it glowing?" Kid Flash asked, noting a faint white glow to the place, not unlike what Valerie's armor had had.

"Ghost proof shielding," Valerie answered tersely.

Wally's mouth fell open as he looked at M'Gann. "You guys weren't kidding about the ghost thing?" She just gave a little shake of her head in reply.

At Valerie's knock, the door was opened by a slightly older red-headed girl with wide teal eyes which narrowed a little as she saw who was there. "Valerie," she acknowledged in a carefully neutral tone. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Hi, Jazz," Valerie greeted, straining to put some warmth in her voice. "Are your parents here? We were hoping to get their help with something."

Jazz looked past Valerie, just then noticing the large entourage the other girl had with her. Her tone became slightly friendlier, "What do you need?"

"Um, these guys are new in town and they think they may have caught some video of a ghost, outside of Amity Park, a little while back. We were hoping your parents could take a look at it."

Jazz sighed. "Dad had a really grueling day of physical therapy yesterday, so he's still upstairs sleeping. Mom's down in the lab though." She stood aside so they could enter.

"Thanks," Valerie said as she led the way across a neat and tidy, if well lived in, living room – completely and surprisingly normal-looking considering what was on their roof. Once they went down the basement stairs however, it was a different story.

"Hello, Mrs. Fenton?" Valerie called to a woman wearing a teal hazmat suit and red goggles who was bent over a shiny metal worktable along one wall. She turned to them, pushing back her hood to reveal shoulder length red hair, as she greeted, "Valerie! I wasn't expecting you until later…" She was interrupted by a figure rushing into the room.

"Oh my gosh!" Wally exclaimed, looking around the lab with wide-eyed excitement. "You have your own gas chromatograph, and a spectrophotometer, and an Experion electrophoresis system, and a C10 refractometer, and a cryogentic storage system, and…. OH, and what's this? Or this?" He raced from item to item, luckily still at human speeds, to inspect them as he named them. "When you said ghosts, I didn't expect it to be so… so…"

"Scientific," Maddie finished for him, with a small smirk of amusement on her face.

"Yeah!" he nodded enthusiastically, examining an item that looked like a cross between an autoclave and a vacuum cleaner, neatly labeled with the face of a large man in an orange jumpsuit and the words "Fenton Ectoplasmic Incinerator" on the side.

"We get that a lot," Maddie answered. "When most people hear ghosts, they think candles and séances and psychics. But we've endeavored to study ghosts using the full rigor of the scientific process." She walked over to them and extended her hand, "I'm Maddie Fenton. It's nice to meet you."

" _Are you sure she's not a distant relation or something?_ " M'Gann teased Wally over the mindlink. She flashed an image of the redheaded woman in her goggles compared to Wally in his. Wally blushed and hastily contained his enthusiasm, rejoining the group. Meanwhile M'Gann shook Maddie's hand and out loud introduced them, "Hi! I'm Megan, this is Conner, and this is… KF."

"Mrs. Fenton," Valerie drew her attention, "they have some video footage they think might contain a ghost - an invisible one. We were hoping you could take a look at it?"

"Of course," Maddie instantly agreed. "Let's see what we can do."

Twenty minutes later they were all crowded around Maddie's computer, which was hooked up to the Fenton Spectral Analyzer. "Now, film footage would really have been best," the paranormal scientist was explaining, "because it captures more electromagnetic frequencies than digital does. A wider spectrum of visible and invisible light, if you will. But as long as the digital video is of high enough quality, we should be able to at least detect the phase shifts in the visible spectrum associated with a non-visible spectral entity."

M'Gann and Valerie both looked baffled, but Wally was eating the explanations up. Conner wore a look of intense concentration, but he too seemed to be following along. They were all at full attention however when the Spectral Analyzer indicated it was done processing the footage and the video came up on Maddie's monitor.

The footage, which was spliced together to follow a black limo from camera to camera down a two-lane highway, at first seemed perfectly routine. Then suddenly, a faint shape came into view in the picture – the outline of a slim figure in black with white gloves and boots, swooping through the air after the limo. Maddie froze the video. The contrasting light and dark portions of the figure were all that could be made out, no real details, but they heard Maddie gasp, "Phantom."

"So, it is a ghost?" M'Gann asked.

"Yeah, a very specific ghost," Valerie answered, her posture tensing and teeth clenching. "Let's watch the rest."

Maddie unpaused the video. The rest was brief – the ghostly figure flew into the limo and when it came out it was holding another child-sized human shape. They disappeared off screen, flying straight up, and thirty seconds later the limo screeched to a halt. Maddie stopped the video again and they all sat there in silence for a moment.

"He kidnapped someone," Maddie finally said, half statement and half question.

M'Gann nodded. "A boy named Dick Grayson was riding in that limo and disappeared," she explained. Wally reached past Maddie to back up the video to where Phantom and the boy were visible and just stared intently at the screen, as if trying to memorize what few details were there.

I've been wondering where that spook went," Valerie spat, shaking her head. The Team looked at her curiously. "Phantom hasn't been seen around here in almost two months. Kidnapping kids isn't really his M.O., but then again he's been unpredictable lately."

"Tell us everything you know," Wally demanded, his full attention now on the ghost hunters.

* * *

AN: Ok, so this chapter got away from me a little bit and there's still quite a bit of catching up for the Team and Batman to do, so the next chapter may continue with them rather than getting on to what I know we are all looking forward to most (seriously, I keep working ahead on Dick/Danny's chapter rather than getting through the exposition I need for everyone else first). We'll see if I have that much willpower. THANK YOU again to all the wonderful reviewers!


	13. Chapter 13

Augustus Freeman IV was an excellent lawyer, and with no real evidence to charge Bruce Wayne with a crime, Bruce was soon free to go. Augustus couldn't let him leave the hotel however without one last warning. "Speaking as a lawyer," he began, holding his hands up placatingly, "– and I already know this advice will go unheeded, but I am compelled to say it – it might be better for you to remain in police custody. That way if the boy does turn up… harmed in some way," he couldn't bring himself to say "dead" to this man at this moment, "you cannot be blamed for it." Bruce's eyes narrowed dangerously and for a moment Augustus thought Bruce might actually hit him. Then, without a word, Bruce brushed past the lawyer and out the door.

A short car ride later and Bruce was on a private jet back to Gotham. Just one more annoying delay in his search for Dick. While a Zeta tube would have been faster, he knew the police were still keeping tabs on him and the press were hounding his every step, so this was his only choice for the moment.

At least from the privacy of his own jet he could securely contact the Justice League and get updated on the search. He quickly set up an encrypted call to the Watchtower, which was answered by Superman. "Glad to hear you are out," the man of steel greeted.

"Update, now," Batman demanded tersely.

Superman sighed at the abrupt greeting, but really expected nothing more under the circumstances. "I'm sending you the case files now to look through, but basically we haven't found anything," he summarized. As they waited for the files to be transferred, Superman couldn't help asking, "So, Icon, huh? I have to say, I was rather surprised you brought him in. That's not like you. Dick has been missing longer than this before. What's going on?"

There was no response for a few seconds except the rapid clicking of computer keys, then finally Bruce answered in a low voice, "This isn't a typical kidnapping. Before, I've always had a clue who has taken him, what to expect, but I don't have anything to go on here." The admission surprised Superman – the world's greatest detective was rarely at a loss. "Plus, the phone call."

"It was disturbing," Superman conceded. "But clearly they forced him to say those things. We all know you would never purposefully hurt Dick."

Batman gave a weary sigh. "Yes, but however they managed to do it, it wasn't normal."

"What do you mean?"

"Dick didn't use any of the code words we've set up for situations just such as this. If he was being forced to say what he said, he should have called me 'Brucie' or slipped in a reference to math class. We have code words for whether he knows he's being held in Gotham or outside of Gotham, whether there are other hostages, if his life is in immediate danger, and a dozen other things." Bruce's paused, a little of the fear he felt for his son breaking through his usually stoic mask. "Clark, he should have been able to give me something, but he didn't," he admitted quietly. Bruce clenched his eyes shut for a moment, collecting himself, having only allowed this brief lapse in front of a good friend. "But it was definitely Dick on the line – his voice at least – I just don't know how they did it." When his eyes opened again, they had returned to their usual unreadable equanimity.

Superman wished he were there in person for his friend at this moment, but knew nothing he could do, short of finding Dick, would make it any better. He also knew better than to give false reassurances to the Batman, so instead he simply said, "We're doing everything we can."

Bruce acknowledged him with a quick nod. "Keep me informed," he ordered as he cut off the connection.

Scanning through the files, Bruce quickly caught up on the investigation so far. Martian Manhunter hadn't found any signs of Dick or anyone else in the forest when he went to investigate where Dick's trackers had gone off line. As Bruce had predicted, Commissioner Gordon had finally called Batman in some hours ago, and was already aware of Dick's phone call. Gordon, having known Bruce since he was a child and Dick since Bruce took him in, didn't believe Dick had made the phone call willingly. Bruce felt lucky to have the policeman on his side.

As for the phone call itself, the Justice League had not been able to track it back to its source but did localize it to the eastern United States at least. Listening closely to the call, Superman had noted that the background noises consisted of birds, insects, and wind through deciduous trees, with no hint of cars or other motorized traffic. So outdoors, somewhere remote – more remote than where the trackers went off line even. Unfortunately, that did not narrow down the possibilities very much.

Bruce quickly got to the end of the sparse file. There had been no other leads. The police and Justice League had turned up nothing of significance so far. Appended at the end of the file was a note from Red Tornado stating that Miss Martian and Superboy were checking out what appeared to be an unlikely lead in Amity Park. Making a mental note to follow up on that shortly, Batman started going over what little evidence there was once again to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

* * *

Maddie invited Valerie and the group of heroes upstairs to the living room to be more comfortable while the two experienced ghost hunters explained what they knew of ghosts. As they walked through the door, Jazz pulled Valerie aside, waiting for the other teens to pass.

"What are you thinking, Valerie?" she whispered angrily. "Bringing more kids into ghost hunting! Didn't what happened with Sam prove how dangerous that can be? _You_ shouldn't even be doing it!"

Valerie pursed her lips, her eyes flicking away guiltily. "That wasn't my fault," she huffed. "I tried to get her out of there…" she trailed off on an argument they'd clearly had several times before. She blew out a loud breath. "Look, these guys are different. Just trust me on this. They're going to go after the missing kid no matter what, so we might as well give them what advantages we can if they're going up against Phantom." Valerie turned before Jazz could say anything else and rejoined the group.

Superboy frowned at the conversation he had overheard with his super-hearing. Phantom was evidently dangerous and had hurt people in the past. That didn't bode well for Dick Grayson. Also, apparently not everyone in this family was quite so enthusiastic about ghost hunting. He passed the information on mentally to his teammates.

Maddie and Valerie gave a brief summary of how they believed ghosts were formed, their obsessions, powers, and general behavior. Jazz hung out quietly at the edges of the room, a faint scowl directed at Valerie throughout the conversation.

Wally's eyes got bigger and bigger the longer they talked. " _Guys,_ " he said over the mind link, " _can you believe this? Ghosts? Real?_ "

" _I'm not sure what the big deal is_ ," Superboy responded silently.

" _Yeah_ ," Miss Martian agreed, " _you're sitting in the room with two aliens. We've seen magic and dealt with extra-dimensional beings before. This doesn't seem to be any different than any of that._ "

" _But, ghosts!_ " Wally stuttered once again, unable to articulate just how far outside of possible that should be according to his worldview.

When the overview was complete, Superboy was the first to ask a question. "So, how do we fight them?"

" _You_ don't," Jazz finally spoke up, throwing her hands in the air. "It's way too dangerous!" She appeared ready to go off on a long rant, but was quickly silenced by a glare from her mother.

Maddie frowned and then, in a much more reasonable tone of voice than Jazz was using, admonished Connor, "I know you mean well, but Jasmine is right. You children shouldn't be trying to fight ghosts. You need to leave that to the professionals."

"But, doesn't she do it?" Wally interjected, gesturing to Valerie.

"Yes, but Valerie is a special case," Maddie admitted hesitantly, unsure how much these teens knew.

"It's ok, Mrs. Fenton, they know," Valerie reassured her. "And, while I can't go into details, these guys aren't exactly just my new high school friends. They can handle it. They..."

Valerie caught herself and stopped talking just as a dark haired boy in jeans and a t-shirt stuck his head into the room, causing an awkward silence. "Hey Jazz, are you almost ready to go?" he called, looking curiously around at the assembled group.

Jazz turned to him, startled, then glanced at her watch. "Oh yeah, Danny! Give me two minutes." He nodded and ducked back out of the room. Maddie looked questioningly at her daughter. "I promised Danny that I would take him and Tucker to the hospital to visit Sam this morning," she quickly explained.

Maddie's shoulders slumped as a weary look came over her. "Sure, sweetie. Just be sure they don't cause any trouble." Jazz agreed, then gave one more look around the room, reluctant to leave the argument unfinished. "Anything else?" Maddie finally asked.

Jazz shook her head reluctantly. "You know what I think." With that, she went to gather her things for the drive.

"I apologize for my daughter, she's just very overprotective these days," Maddie said to her guests. "It's a bit of a long story, but I suppose you should know all the details if you might be tangling with Phantom."

"Please," Megan encouraged. "We need to know as much as we can."

Maddie moved to lean against the arm of the couch and her expression became thoughtful. "Well, Phantom has always been a powerful ghost, and caused his share of trouble, but for the most part he concentrated on fighting other ghosts that showed up in Amity park," Maddie began.

"Yeah, I don't think any of us realized it at the time, but he was probably keeping most of the ghosts away or from causing too much harm," Valerie reluctantly admitted. "Not that he was a good guy or anything," she hastily amended, "he ruined my life. But I had actually been starting to think he wasn't all bad at one point."

"Anyway," Maddie continued, "the ghost fights were a nearly daily occurrence. But two months ago he suddenly stopped. He wasn't spotted at all for about five days. When he did show up again, he attacked my husband, Jack, who had been out running errands. It was brutal – Phantom had never acted with such evil intent before. Jack didn't even have his bazooka on him at the time, since the grocery store had banned him from bringing ghost hunting weapons in." That last comment earned a few sideways looks from the team, but they didn't want to interrupt.

"Phantom brought half the store down on him and five other people, and might have done worse if Valerie hadn't shown up to fight him. Luckily no one was killed, but Jack was severely injured." She turned her eyes upstairs to where her husband was still sleeping. "He only got out of the hospital last week.

"Phantom wasn't seen again after that until he attacked the high school six weeks ago. Apparently my son, Danny, and his friends, Samantha and Tucker, thought they could take him on with some of our ghost hunting weapons Danny had been sneaking out of the house for them."

"They had been taking on some of the weaker ghosts that have been bothering the town since Phantom disappeared," Valerie took over the story. "I found out just after Mr. Fenton was attacked. It allowed me to concentrate on the more powerful ghosts that Phantom normally would have fought though." She gave a resigned sigh. "Jazz blames me for not stopping them or telling her parents. But without Phantom around to fight them, the ghosts thought they'd have free reign of the city. Mr. Fenton was out of commission and Mrs. Fenton was taking care of him, so without Danny and his friends helping me, the city would have been overwhelmed." Valerie stood and started pacing the room.

"When Phantom attacked the school, most of the students evacuated like they're supposed to, but those three stayed back to cover everyone else. I, of course, went to fight Phantom right away, but it wasn't going well. He's… he was much stronger than when we'd fought before." She bit her lip. "He was different – no lame quips, no holding back. I told those three to run too, but Sam wouldn't leave me to fight alone." She paused, and her face twisted with guilt. "Phantom aimed straight for her. He went around an easy shot on me just to get her and I wasn't fast enough to stop him."

Valerie took a deep breath and forced herself to stop pacing. "Luckily Mrs. Fenton showed up a second later with what must have been her entire arsenal and together we were able to run Phantom off. Sam almost didn't make it," she finished quietly.

Mrs. Fenton put a hand on her shoulder and Valerie's stiff form relaxed a little. "You weren't in very good shape yourself after that," she reminded Valerie. "And Sam is recovering, even if it's slow," she said reassuringly, "and her parents have decided as soon as she's out of the hospital and able to travel that they are moving their family to France to get away from all this."

Jazz chose that opportune moment to enter the room again. "And Danny is heartbroken at losing one of his best friends," Jazz said accusingly to Valerie as she walked to the front door. "We're just lucky none of them got killed."

"Jazz!" Danny interrupted, scowling at her. He shrugged apologetically at Valerie as he crossed the room after his sister.

Jazz pressed her lips tightly together. "Fine," she spat. "We'll be back in two hours," she informed her mom, leaving the fact that she expected Valerie to be gone by then unspoken. As they exited, Superboy could hear Danny defending Valerie to Jazz until he got into the car.

Valerie slumped into a chair, he head hanging and arms crossed tightly around her. "She's never going to forgive me," she moaned.

"Valerie, it's not all about you," said Maddie. "It's also that Jazz was one of those teen girls who idolized Phantom and thought he was a hero – no matter how many time we reminded her of the true nature of ghosts – and after the attacks she's just had a hard time dealing with how wrong she was. I think she blames herself too."

Trying to end the uncomfortable silence that ensued and get them back on topic, Wally asked, "So the big problem is: how do we find this Phantom anyway?"

"He used to only haunt Amity Park, but…" Valerie mumbled.

"No, not always," Maddie interrupted. "He has been seen a few other places outside Amity Park, but rarely – Wisconsin for instance, fighting the Wisconsin ghost. It's always been to fight other ghosts before this, though."

"Ok," Valerie said, although this was clearly news to her. She sat up straighter to look at the Team again. "But as I was saying, he hasn't been around here much lately. The last time he was spotted in Amity Park was when he attacked the High School. I've tried to track him down a few times since then, but haven't had any luck. Mostly I've been too busy fighting the ghosts that show up in Amity," she admitted grudgingly.

"You mentioned something about being able to track ghosts with some kind of 'ghost radar' earlier," M'Gann asked.

Valerie nodded. "I can, but it has a relatively limited range – about the size of the city. We'd have to get into the general vicinity before I could track him."

Maddie tapped a contemplative finger against her lips. "Jack had something…" she tried to recall. "Oh, yes, the Booo-merang. It was supposed to be able to track Phantom, but it always seemed to malfunction and track Danny instead. Luckily I noticed that Jack managed to fix that problem in most of our inventions a little while ago. Hopefully he can adjust this one too!" She jumped to her feet. "Let me go see if I can find it." She hurried to the lab.

"C'mon," Valerie said to the others, standing up to follow Maddie. "If you're going to fight ghosts, especially that ghost, you are going to need some ghost hunting weapons." The Team exchanged curious looks, Wally with bit of a grin, and got up to trail after her.

As the Team headed downstairs, Superboy noticed something moving just at the edge of his peripheral vision. He glanced back up to the doorway and for a split second he thought he saw a small gray shape scramble past, but it was gone before he could get a good look. Figuring the Fenton's must have a cat, he continued down.

* * *

AN: Ok, this chapter really didn't want to be written, but I finally got it out - and it's like twice as long as my normal chapter (which I know are short), so there's that at least. A lot of necessary exposition, although I probably confused some people more than I cleared things up. Fear not, there shall be a good explanation of this other Danny soon (although perhaps it's easily guessable as well). Vlad needs a monologue either next chapter or the one after.

The next chapter really does want to be written however. So much so that it is about halfway there already. I do want to note though that **I will be raising the rating for the story to "T" for the next chapter**. I blame this on the fact that I have Imagine Dragon's Bleeding Out on my playlist (but most of the chapter is influenced by Woodkid's Run Boy Run). It really will be a very mild T for violence and slightly dark themes, so hopefully not a problem for anyone.

Finally, THANK YOU again to all the wonderful reviewers!


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Please note, the rating for this story has been raised to T for some violence etc., but it's a pretty mild T, I think...**

* * *

Dick's thoughts were a jumble as he was pulled up through the darkness. Danny could go intangible like a ghost. It felt exactly the same as he remembered when he was first kidnapped, although that lasted only a second or two. He had experienced something similar when overshadowed by Plasmius too, but that memory was hazy. He fought down the mild panic that was threatening to set in. Pulling away from Danny's hand while still under tons of topsoil would probably be a bad idea.

Danny was alive, Dick had no doubt, and he clung to that thought. Danny was breathing, well had been breathing last Dick could see him, and Dick could feel Danny's heartbeat pounding through his tightly held hand. Definitely alive.

So, a human with ghost abilities. That was the most logical conclusion, Dick decided. It was probably no coincidence that the son of ghost hunters – ghost researching inventors – had that particular kind of powers. The only question was did they experiment on him deliberately or was it an accident?

Dick flinched as they emerged into the daylight and everything suddenly became overwhelmingly bright. Danny let go of him and he once again became solid, standing in the middle of a fern-covered clearing in a vast forest. "Wow, you weren't kidding about the middle of nowhere," Dick joked, trying to cover his disorientation as the tingling sensation slowly left his limbs. Once his eyes adjusted, all he could see in any direction were trees – hemlock and birch with a few scattered pines, he noted. That matched with approximately where he thought they were. Danny hadn't been sure of their exact location, but they were still in the U.S., about 250 miles west of New York, which would put them somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Danny scanned the area for threats, every line of his body tense. Not noticing anything immediately, he said, "We should get moving."

Dick snapped back into Robin mode, "Right." Questions about ghost powers would have to wait. Their first priority had to be getting out of there and contacting help. A quick glance up at the dazzling dawn sky surprised him by how much time had passed, but quickly oriented him to the cardinal directions.

"This way," Danny said with a slight frown, "I think." He headed off to the east at a quick pace, but the Boy Wonder was easily able to keep up. In decent terrain, two miles would take Dick maybe 15 minutes at a good run. In a dense forest, however, with no shoes and rough ground, it was going to be double that at least. Maybe triple, he amended, looking again at his companion. Danny had obviously suffered from his months in captivity and not being fed often enough. Dick noted however that Danny was looking better than he had earlier. All the bruises on his arms and the red chaffing around his neck from the collar were gone.

They had come about a mile when Danny unexpectedly stopped, his breath briefly visible as a frosty mist despite the relatively warm morning. "Wait. I think…" was all Danny managed to say before a piercing howl cut through the forest.

The sound sent a chill up Dick's spine. "Wolves?" he asked, unsure if he hoped it was or not.

"Kind of." Horrified blue eyes glanced at Dick. "More like ghost wolf-bear things..."

"Of course it is," Dick deadpanned. "Couldn't have thought to mention them earlier?"

"I didn't know Plasmius had any here," Danny hurriedly explained as they started running again. For a few brief minutes there was silence except for the boys crashing through the underbrush, then the howling returned, excited this time and closer. Danny cursed. "They must have found our trail."

"What can we do?" Dick asked without stopping.

"Just keep running." Danny instructed between winded breaths.

There was no sound of pursuit except for the occasional eerie howl, each time a little nearer than the last. Dick ran harder than he ever had before, ignoring his scraped and bleeding feet, his breath coming in burning gasps. Two minutes later he could see a building taking shape ahead of them, the log walls blending into forest. He glanced backward, dismayed to see how far behind Danny had fallen.

Suddenly, up from the ground rose a terrifying creature. "Danny! Behind you!" Dick yelled, but it was too late. The huge green beast's enormous claws came down on the other boy, and Dick stumbled as he was unable to tear his eyes away from what he was sure would be Danny's last moments. A fraction of a second before the blow landed however, a glowing green dome formed around Danny, deflecting the claws. Danny spun toward the creature and raised a hand, blasting the animal with an emerald energy beam. The monster roared in pain, but did not seem significantly injured.

"Plasmius will be coming!" Danny gave a panicked yell. "Keep going!"

Right, Dick remembered, Danny had said Plasmius would be able to track him if he used his powers. And some powers they were too, he thought, as a second ghost animal appeared and only just missed Danny, taking down a large tree instead. Dick realized he had slowed down to watch the fight, but at Danny's shout he resumed his frantic pace. The ranger cabin was within sight.

Dick caught green flashes out of the corners of his eyes as he fled. Turning back once, he saw Danny dodging among the trees, narrowly avoiding the slashing claws of the ghost beasts pursuing him. It appeared Danny had managed to draw all of their attention for the moment, firing his peculiar green energy at them.

As Dick reached the abandoned looking cabin, he slammed the door open and rushed inside. He frantically looked around for a phone or radio or anything useful. It was one room, sparsely furnished with a desk, chair, and bare cot. No one had been there for months, as evidenced by the thin layer of dust over everything – everything except an eight inch square on the corner of the desk which was oddly clean.

"Are you looking for this?" a chillingly familiar voice said, just before Plasmius appeared. In his hand was a short-wave radio that exploded with a burst of pink energy. Dick reacted reflexively, grabbing the desk chair and flinging it at the ghost then diving for the doorway. The sound of wood hitting wood behind him indicated the ghost had dodged the chair, or let it go through him, to hit the wall instead.

For a terrifying moment a hand caught at the back of Dick's shirt, but then a bright green beam of energy shot over his head and he was released. Dick sprinted outside and skidded under cover of a clump of ferns around the side of the cabin, hoping to lose the ghost.

He glanced back to see Danny squaring off against the animalistic ghosts creatures, Plasmius floating leisurely behind them with a smirk on his face. Apparently, Plasmius wasn't worried about where Dick had gone as his focus was now solely on Danny. Seizing the opportunity, Dick grabbed a nearby stick and started frantically scratching at the side of the cabin, still keeping an eye on the confrontation.

Danny brought the glowing green shield forth from his hands again and held it up to meet the charging claws of the ghost beasts."This has to end now, Plasmius!" Danny shouted.

"I quite agree, Daniel. Surrender to me and all this nonsense will be done with," Plasmius said, obviously not expecting the boy, still desperately fending off the attacking ghostly animals, to give in.

To his surprise however, Danny said, "You're right." Dick froze to stare at Danny. There was a look in Danny's eyes that knocked the breath out of Dick, bringing to mind flashbacks of his team's disastrous train-to-fail exercise.

Plasmius's grin widened in delight for just a moment before somehow the ghost paled even more than he was and his glee turned to shock. Danny dropped his shield just as the large claws of something that strongly resembled a green saber-toothed tiger came crashing down upon him.

"No!" Plasmius screamed in frustration, drowning out Dick's own shocked yell, as a deep gash was cut across Danny's midsection and he collapsed, blood quickly coating the leafy ground.

"No more, Vlad," Danny panted between shaky breaths, not even trying to stem the flow of blood, but managing a defiant grin. "You don't get me anymore." He closed his eyes with an involuntary groan.

Plasmius growled with anger as he flew to the boy's side. He grabbed Danny around the neck, easily lifting the bleeding human boy off his feet. Danny couldn't help giving a strangled cry as Plasmius eyed him with distaste.

An evil grin slowly spread across Plasmius's face. "You know, Daniel, this does not actually look fatal. Not with your ghost healing abilities at any rate," he observed. "You never learn, do you?" Plasmius asked, his usual sneer returning. "We will have to make sure that your next lesson is particularly memorable." Danny went wide-eyed with panic, struggling futility, his mouth open in a "no" that lacked the oxygen to be heard due to the ghostly hand pressing against his throat.

Plasmius slipped something out of his pocket with the hand that was not holding Danny. Dick only caught a glimpse of an object that resembled an oddly shaped taser before Plasmius jammed it against Danny's side and an electric shock jolted through the boy. Danny let loose a guttural scream as Plasmius released him, the electricity arcing white-hot over Danny's body until it formed a glow so bright it forced Dick to look away. A second later it was gone.

When Dick looked back up, all the air left him. Where Danny had stood a moment before, there was now the ghostly figure of Phantom.

Phantom's glowing green eyes briefly met Dick's, despite his concealment. Phantom mouthed an anguished "I'm sorry" before he bent over with another cry of pain. The scream cut off suddenly as Phantom straightened and turned blank crimson eyes to where Plasmius was standing with the red gem in his hand.

"You cannot get away from me, Daniel. Don't you get it yet? You cannot even get yourself killed correctly, how can you expect to ever defeat me? Your life and the lives of all you hold dear are in my hands," Vlad sneered. "You will bow down, you will submit to me. There is no escape."

Time slowed to a crawl as more pieces finally fell into place for Robin. It didn't explain everything – Phantom may be part human, but certainly not all of the ghosts were. As much as he wanted this to mean there weren't really ghosts, it didn't. But Plasmius… Plasmius must be like Phantom, and that was the secret that Danny said he would kill for. Which meant…

Dick scrambled to his feet and fled, although he knew it would be useless before he'd even stood up. Where could he go?

Plasmius's eyes flared as he caught sight of Dick. "Ah, it seems your little friend has seen too much now." He motioned to Phantom with a tilt of his head. "Get him."

Phantom was incredibly fast, strong, and agile, even severely wounded as evidenced by the dark green stain slowly spreading across the front of his black suit. Dick dodged for all he was worth, but Phantom was faster, leaving Dick no choice but to attempt to fight. Unfortunately, Phantom had the ability to let Robin's strikes go right through him, but become harshly solid again when he delivered his own blows.

To Dick's credit, the first time Phantom got his hands on him, he was able to flip Phantom, momentarily surprising him, and land a solid hit of his own. The second time though, Phantom was prepared and able to hold him. Dick responded with a vicious elbow to the stomach that caught Phantom exactly where Danny had been raked by the ghost beast's claws.

With a strangled cry, Phantom let Dick go and fell to his knees, causing Dick a momentary flicker of guilt. Phantom's eyes wavered between green and red. Dick ran again, hoping to gain some cover among a particularly thick group of pines.

Plasmius cursed in frustration, quickly reasserting his will over the boy with the red stone. "It appears I will have to do this myself," he said, quickly splitting himself into four exact duplicates, three of which took off after Dick.

It wasn't even a contest this time. With rest, food, and his gadgets, Robin might have been able to take Plasmius, but as it was Dick was quickly surrounded. Dick managed to take out one duplicate with a blow from a tree branch he was using as a makeshift staff, but it turned out to be only a distraction. A stunning ectoblast to the back of his head dazed him, as he was grabbed from behind by another Plasmius duplicate.

They flew quickly back through the forest, the duplicates remerging into the one holding Dick, and Phantom following impassively alongside them. Without even pausing, they phased through the forest floor and back into the metal box that Dick and Danny had escaped from not even an hour before. As soon as Dick was back on solid ground he started struggling again, but he was held with inhuman strength.

Continuing to hold Dick with one hand, Plasmius picked up the collar that was still sitting where it had fallen when Dick released Danny. He examined it for a moment then growled in frustration at the fried circuitry. He crushed the collar in anger, then threw Dick carelessly against a wall. Dick's head hit with a thump, stunning him again – probably a concussion he thought dully.

Through blurry vision, Dick saw Plasmius turn to the mesmerized Phantom standing next to him and raise the red gem in his hand imperiously. "Kill him," Plasmius commanded.

Phantom took a step forward and Dick's breath hitched with panic. There was nowhere to run here, no way to get away. "Wait," Plasmius said before a second step was taken. "I am getting ahead of myself. He will need some bruises to support the narrative we are creating, and bruises don't form on corpses." His eyes narrowed at Dick speculatively. "Don't break any bones and don't leave any marks on his face," Plasmius ordered, waving Phantom toward Dick again.

* * *

AN: I'm so sorry to have left this hanging for so long. The chapter really wanted to be written, but Real Life had other ideas. Also, sorry to leave this chapter in such a dark place, but necessary I think. I'm not quite ready to write graphic bad stuff in my stories yet, so I'll just leave it implied for now.

Finally, a giant THANK YOU to everyone who continues to follow, favorite, and review this story!


	15. Chapter 15

M'Gann, Superboy, and Kid Flash followed Valerie down into the basement and stopped at the bottom of the steps, glancing around at the equipment dubiously. The Fenton's had a wide variety of inventions arrayed on various workbenches, however most of them were in some stage of disassembly. "How much of this actually works?" Wally asked.

Valerie strode across the lab to a large steel vault door. She entered a code on a keypad next to it, and an audible clank could be heard as the lock disengaged somewhere inside. "Those are all prototypes the Fentons are working on. The good stuff is in here," Valerie responded as she turned the handle and the vault swung open.

Her face fell as she looked inside the vault. "Hmm. Fighting all the ghosts since Phantom left has taken a toll on the Fenton's inventory. There's not as much here as I'd hoped, but it should be enough." Valerie started grabbing a couple of belts hanging on a peg next to the door.

The teens turned when they heard footsteps on the stairs and saw Maddie walking down slowly, staring at the Booo-merang in her hand with a thoughtful frown. "Was he able to do it, Mrs. Fenton?" Valerie called, surprised she was back so soon.

The older woman looked up with a chagrined smile. "Well, according to Jack, he hasn't done anything to modify the equipment to keep it from picking up Danny by mistake. He thought I had." She walked over to the nearest workbench and set the metallic boomerang down. "Our best guess is it had been homing in on some faint ectoplasmic contamination on Danny that has finally worn off now. I'm not sure where he would have picked it up, but since one of his chores is cleaning up the lab and he has a tendency to be a little clumsy sometimes… well, it could have been anything." She gave a little shrug. "But, in theory, it should work just fine now, like our other equipment."

"Well, that's good news then!" M'Gann exclaimed.

"Yeah, good," Valerie nodded, but her eyes narrowed a bit in thought as she said it. She quickly shook it off and handed one of the silver belts in her hands to Kid Flash. "Well, let's get ready then. It would take days to explain how all of this works to you. Let's just stick with the simple stuff."

" _We should contact the rest of the team_ ," M'Gann suggested to Superboy and Kid Flash over the mind link. " _If this Phantom is as powerful as they say, we may need everyone, and we should get them equipped too."_

 _"Yeah,"_ Kid Flash agreed. _"No sense taking any chances. We should take all the firepower we can get."_

* * *

"Aqualad to Red Tornado."

"Tornado here."

"Artemis and I are en route to join M'Gann, Superboy, and Kid Flash in Amity Park. They appear to have discovered what has taken Richard Grayson and have potentially found a way to track his location. We are going to..."

"Stand by while I transfer you to Batman." Aqualad was startled by interruption from the normally polite robot and the abruptness of the handoff as his comm immediately clicked over.

"Batman here. What have you found?"

* * *

Less than an hour later the Team was reunited, minus Robin who was still unavailable when Aqualad asked about him. Batman would join them as soon as he could, but they were to start tracking down the ghost right away.

They were in an out-of-the-way location on the outskirts of town, where Valerie was stunned to find the Team had left a _spaceship_. An honest-to-God Martian spaceship. Not to even mention the man with gills. This day kept getting crazier and crazier for her. Once she got over her shock, she distributed the remaining equipment along with brief explanations of how to use each device.

"Are we ready?" Aqualad asked, scanning the group. M'Gann was once again in her Martian form and Kid Flash back in costume. Everyone was equipped and appeared ready to go. The Team all gave short nods to their leader, Aqualad noting the Team's unusually solemn demeanor. He turned to Valerie who was standing nearby, in full armor once more, nervously tapping the Booo-merang in her hand. "It is time."

"Right." Valerie straightened up and took a deep breath. She pushed a button on the metal boomerang, which emitted a series of beeps as the lights on it turned green, and then threw it into the air. The Booo-merang flew around her head in a large circle.

It continued to circle for the next ten minutes. M'Gann bit her lip. "Is it supposed to do that?" she finally asked.

Valerie looked uncertainly at the device. "I think it's just trying to get a lock on him…" Before she could finish the sentence, the Booo-merang suddenly took off to the east, leaving the teens scrambling to follow it.

While the rest of the Team followed in the Bioship, Kid Flash and Valerie (on her hoverboard) followed the Booo-merang from the ground to keep it in sight as it zoomed among trees, under various cover, and sometimes through buildings.

* * *

A couple of hours later found them in what had to be literally the middle of nowhere – deep inside a state forest. Kid Flash skidded to a stop, as the Booo-merang slowly circled back on itself among the trees, beeping quietly.

"What's going on? Why'd it stop? There's nothing here," Wally asked, both out loud and over the communicator.

Valerie drew up beside Kid Flash and observed the circling tracking device. "It must have lost its lock on Phantom's ectoplastmic signature." She flipped open a panel on her arm and consulted her own radar. "I don't have anything either. Something must be blocking the signal, but I'm not sure how that's possible."

"We will be there momentarily," Aqualad stated over the communicator, as he, Superboy, and Artemis disembarked from the Bioship a short distance away. "M'Gann will stay in the Bioship to see if she can spot anything from the air."

Kid Flash noticed something on the ground near where the Booo-merang was drifting and zipped over to it. He stopped dead in his tracks, staring in horror at a deep reddish-brown pool on the ground. "Blood," he called. "A lot of it," he added softly. He felt his stomach turning over queasily.

The others joined him and examined the blood. "It's human," Superboy confirmed their thoughts, although no one asked how he was sure. "Fairly fresh too," he added. "Probably no more than an hour old."

"That's…" Artemis hesitated, feeling a clenching in her gut. "That's most likely a fatal amount of blood loss. Without immediate treatment at least."

Aqualad nodded in acknowledgment. "We cannot assume anything at this point," he said with resolve. "Kid, please collect a sample of the blood so we can analyze it later and see if it is a match for Richard Grayson."

"Too bad Robin isn't here. He could probably analyze it in two minutes out here," Superboy grumbled.

"Robin is detained on another mission," Aqualad explained. "I'm sure Batman will have the necessary equipment when he arrives."

"What kind of mission could Robin be on without us _and_ without Batman?" M'Gann asked, listening in from the ship.

Wally opened his mouth to defend Robin's absence, but before he could he was interrupted by Artemis. "What are these green stains?" she asked, pointing to a trail of viscous green drops a small distance from the pool of blood.

That caught Valerie's attention. "It's ectoplasm." She opened another small scanner on the arm of her suit and ran it over the stains. "Phantom's ectoplasm. He was definitely here."

"And injured somehow," Aqualad declared.

Valerie, still concentrating on her scanner, walked toward some nearby trees which appeared to have been damaged. "Come take a look at this," she called. The other heroes followed after her.

Wally ran a hand along a 5-inch deep claw mark spanning the width of a fallen tree. "Wow. I'd hate to see the bear that did that."

"I don't think it was a bear, at least not a normal one," Valerie said. She pointed to a large blackened mark on another tree that was still standing. "This is an ectoplasm burn. There was some kind of ghost fight here."

Aqualad's forehead wrinkled in thought. "It is unlikely that a 14 year old boy put up enough of a fight to result in this kind of damage."

"Maybe he's tougher than he seems," Wally said hopefully. Robin could totally take on a few ghosts, right?

"No, I agree. This was ghost fighting ghost," Valerie countered. "Claws versus ectoblasts."

"And Phantom falls on the ectoblast side, right?" Superboy clarified, remembering what they had been told about the ghost.

"Right," Valerie confirmed.

"Let's spread out and see if we can find any more clues," Aqualad ordered.

"There's a building of some kind just to the east of your position," Miss Martian supplied from her vantage point in the air aboard the Bioship.

Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Valerie went inside the cabin, while the others focused on the outside.

"There was some kind of fight here, too," Kid Flash observed, as they noticed the broken furniture and scattered electronic bits of some now-unidentifiable object.

"And not too long ago, either," Aqualad added. "The footprints in the dust are fresh."

Kid Flash bent down to get a closer look. "Only one set. So whoever the fight was against didn't leave any?" he said with trepidation.

"Could it have just been one person destroying things then, instead of a fight?"

"No, I don't think so. Plus this set is barefoot and relatively small… a young teenager would fit that…" Wally felt all those sessions going over case notes with his forensic scientist uncle may have been worth it, without Robin's detective skills here.

"Could the footprints be Phantom's?" Aqualad asked doubtfully.

Valerie took a quick look. "No. He prefers floating to walking, so he probably wouldn't leave any, but anyway he's always wearing boots."

"Which means the footprints are most likely Richard Grayson's," Aqualad concluded.

Wally nodded resolutely, his lips pressed tightly together. The footprints were the right size. And if Phantom didn't leave footprints, he could have been fighting Phantom... Wally flashed back again to the pool of blood outside and felt his stomach once again turn over.

"So, what could have happened here? Was this an escape attempt? A rival ghost attack?" Aqualad speculated. Valerie gave a noncommittal shrug in response, while Kid Flash just shook his head.

Artemis poked her head in the doorway. "Hey, Superboy thinks he's found something," she said, motioning them to follow her.

She led the way to the side of the building, where Superboy was wading through thick ferns that grew almost to his waist. Brushing them aside, he pointed to a series of scratches on the wall of the cabin. The marks appeared to form numbers next to a roughly drawn symbol that, despite its poor quality, was definitely a bat. "These marks are fresh," he said, gently running a finger over them. "But what do they mean?"

"Well, that first symbol looks an awful lot like the Batsignal...," Artemis stated the obvious. "It could be a message intended for Batman. Dick Grayson is a big deal in Gotham, he may have assumed that Batman would be coming after him." The others quickly agreed this was likely, Wally especially enthusiastic about the idea. "But what about the rest of this?"

"It looks like an equation of some sort," Aqualad supplied.

"Grayson is a mathlete," Artemis again supplied, and Wally could have kissed her for making it easy for him not to have to come up with this information and supply how he knew it. The rest of the team looked questioningly at her. She bit her lip. "I read his file, in depth," she said defensively. "But what would he be trying to tell Batman with an equation?"

Wally bent down for a closer look. "I think it's a position vector," he said, puzzled.

"So, it'll tell us where he is?" the archer asked hopefully.

"Well, it's not like GPS coordinates or latitude and longitude," Wally explained. "It kind of gives you directions to a point, but you have to know what the origin is and what the coordinate system is…" he trailed off in thought. "Knew I should have paid more attention in geometry…" he mumbled to himself.

"We should assume the origin is here, shouldn't we? The cabin," Superboy suggested. "It's only logical since that's where we found the equation."

"Yeah, that makes sense. And maybe the coordinate system could just be the cardinal directions… north and south would probably be the y axis and east and west for the x axis…" Wally stopped abruptly, squinting in confusion at the equation.

"What is wrong?" Kaldur asked.

Wally blew out a frustrated breath. "There's a third component here, for a z axis coordinate presumably. What does that even mean?"

"Like, up and down?" Artemis questioned. At their surprised looks she added, "Hey, I'm taking geometry too."

"So, maybe he's being held on an upper floor of a skyscraper?" Valerie speculated.

"Out here though?" Artemis was quick to point out, waving a hand at the endless trees surrounding them.

Wally shook his head. "No, it's a negative value anyway. Usually, up would be positive." He looked to the Team with wide eyes and saw the realization hit them all. "He's underground."

* * *

Dick had put up a good fight, even concussed as he was, though there were few marks on Phantom by the end to prove it. "Enough," Plasmius finally called and Phantom floated passively back to his side. Dick was in a lot of pain but, true to his instructions, Phantom hadn't broken anything or done anything more severe than give him some spectacular bruises really. Dick had had a lot worse as Robin. Well, a few times anyway.

"Stay here," Plasmius commanded Phantom, then drifted over to the still open access panel in the floor. He tinkered with the wiring for a moment before a cascading white force field sprang up around Dick and Phantom, trapping them together. Plasmius peered calculatingly at them. "That should hold you for now."

Plasmius turned to Dick with an expression that almost seemed regretful. "It's a shame you've seen too much to let you go. Your guardian has given up on his business deal and gone home to search for you. I guess he really does care after all."

"He'll find me," Dick couldn't help retorting through teeth gritted in pain, his hopes lifting a little to hear that Bruce was able to look for him himself finally.

"Well, he will find your body eventually at any rate," Plasmius dismissed him with a flick of his fingers. "Poor Daniel," he continued. "No one is even looking for him. My friends from Cadmus have seen to that."

Dick looked up sharply at the mention of Cadmus, but a flash of pain from the fast movement covered his surprise before Plasmius caught it. "Cadmus?" he asked, only half-feigning his confusion. The Justice League had been thoroughly through Cadmus after they broke Superboy out and had supposedly shut down any and all questionable operations. Apparently they had missed something.

"Yes, my partners who are interested in that energy technology," Plasmius elaborated. "They recently needed to new place to base some of their more… questionable… operations, and I was happy to oblige. For a price. It turns out that we have many common interests, although their technology proved to be no better than mine at cloning a human-ghost hybrid for the present. However, their ability to make a purely human clone was quite impressive, and their willingness to lend me some of their pets, who could make sure that no one remembered Daniel was anything other than just a normal human, sealed our partnership."

Dick shouldn't have been surprised that even a ghost felt the need to gloat and explain in detail his superiority over his enemies. Apparently a villain is a villain – human, ghost, or something in between. "So, Danny's family doesn't even know he's missing?" Dick clarified, trying to keep the ghost talking.

Plasmius's evil grin grew wider and the red glow in his eyes a little brighter. "Not only that, but after Phantom's recent attacks on them and the city, his family and friends, being the ghost hunters that they are, will attempt to destroy him on sight. And goodness," Plasmius mocked, "what would they think if they suddenly had two Danny's in front of them but one of them had an ectoplasmic signature when they checked. Obviously the purely human one is theirs." His gaze slid to Phantom. "There is no place for him to go."

Without warning, Plasmius turned and angrily challenged, "What are you doing down here?" a moment before a hulking cyborg-like creature became visible at the other end of the room.

"My apologies," a deep echoing voice came from what Dick now realized was a robotic ghost of some sort with flaming hair. "But we have an urgent problem that requires your immediate attention."

Plasmius glared daggers at the other ghost for a moment before relenting. "Very well." He turned his focus to Phantom. "Daniel, when I return we shall finish this lesson." Dick gulped, pretty sure he knew what that would entail.

But as both Plasmius and the other ghost left, Dick leaned back against the wall with a small smirk. "An urgent problem" the ghost had said. Dick hoped that problem was named Batman.

* * *

AN: I profusely apologize for the long wait. But, I'm back. This chapter isn't quite all I'd hoped it would be - a bit too choppy and the equipping scene was giving me fits so I decided to just kind of time-skip it - but I thought I should get this chapter out while I could. And I finally remembered to put Vlad's monologue in! (Which honestly probably should have been in the previous chapter, but it will do here.)

Finally, thank you all for your continued follows, favorites, and most of all reviews! I really appreciate it!


	16. Chapter 16

Miss Martian landed the Bioship in a nearby clearing and joined the Team, while Aqualad quickly reported in with their findings. "Batman says we are to proceed cautiously. He should be joining us in less than 10 minutes," Aqualad told the assembled group. "The Flash and Icon are on standby in case we need further assistance, but Superman, Captain Marvel, and the Green Lanterns are apparently off world dealing with a large asteroid that potentially poses a danger to earth."

With a quick nod of acknowledgement, Wally led the way through the forest following the path indicated by the equation they had found on the side of the cabin. He had to struggle against the urge to rush ahead of the Team to find Dick, knowing it would be better for them to stick together in case of trouble. He tried to hide his bleak expression from the Team as they followed him, but it was a lost cause. Wally kept coming up with different scenarios – none of them good – for what Dick could be going through. He had given up on attempting to pretend that this was just a normal mission for him. He couldn't bring himself to joke around anymore as his mind just kept returning to that pool of blood on the ground.

Wally spotted a break in the trees and double checked his mental math. "There's a clearing up ahead. I think that's where the equation takes us," he informed the Team, increasing his pace in his eagerness to find his best friend.

Miss Martian caught Superboy's attention as they walked and gave a pointed glance in Wally's direction, but Superboy just shrugged in response and noted that Artemis looked every bit as worried too. The telepath was about to press her point when her thoughts were derailed by an uneasy feeling creeping over her.

"Guys, wait," Miss Martian called out urgently, bringing the group to a halt. "I'm sensing an awful lot of angry and malevolent feelings very close by, but I can't pinpoint them," she explained, scanning the trees with a shiver. The Team stilled, trying to hear or see anyone around them. The forest was eerily silent.

"I don't see anything," Superboy offered, quickly followed by agreement from the rest of the Team, except for Valerie who let loose a string of curses.

"What is it?" Aqualad asked.

Valerie punched frantically at the tracking system on her arm. "This whole time I've had my tracker set to lock on and target Phantom's ectosignature."

"So?" Kid Flash asked, moving to look over her shoulder.

"Only Phantom's ectosignature. I should've thought to set it back to scanning for other ghosts too once we saw evidence of that fight back there." She looked up with a grim expression as her radar came alive with a swarm of red dots.

"There are other ghosts nearby?" Aqualad clarified, his hands reaching to the weapons on his back.

Valerie nodded curtly as she raised her weapon toward the trees. "We're surrounded."

A low growl started somewhere in front of them, then a second joined it, and a third, until the ominous sound came from all sides. All at once, the supernatural beasts became visible only a matter of yards away from the heroes.

The Team froze as they surveyed the array of ghosts surrounding them, auras of cold and dread bombarding them from every direction. Wally's mouth hung slack and his eyes were wide with disbelief. "Gh…Gh… Ghosts!"

"Great Shaggy impression, there," Valerie said dryly, as she took the first shot at the ghosts, breaking her companions out of their stupor. Wally felt his cheeks burn, but took the hint and leapt into action along with the rest of the Team. He raced forward to super-speed punch the nearest glowing green bear/wolf thing, only to find his fist flying completely through it without making contact. Not having met the resistance he expected, he was unable to stop his forward momentum and tumbled along the ground leaving a 5-foot long trench in his wake.

Valerie launched onto her hover board, aiming at the dense throng of ghosts trying to close around Wally. They scattered as she approached and she sent several torpedoes after them. As Valerie reached down an armored hand to help Kid Flash to his feet she admonished him, "Remember the plan!"

"Oh! Uh, yeah!" Wally quickly replied, embarrassed yet again, having totally forgotten the tactics they had come up with before leaving Fenton Works. Valerie took off after the ghosts, while Wally paused a split-second to assess the battle and then jumped back in.

With a swish of blonde hair, Artemis had rolled behind cover and came up with her bow drawn. She loosed three arrows in rapid succession, their new ecto-proof resin coating proving its worth as they thunked solidly into the ghost creatures.

Nearby, Kaldur had summoned his water-bearers and, with a flick of his wrists, wrapped two beasts in the magical tentacles. He yanked backward, simultaneously pulling them off their feet and shocking them with a burst of electricity.

Miss Martian's eyes glowed white as she reached out mentally to control the ghosts. After a moment she started to shake, then gasped and fell to the ground. " _I can't control them,_ " she sent to the Team. " _I can feel them – their emotions are almost overwhelming – but it's like that's all that's there. There's no mind to get into._ "

With a bounding leap, Superboy cut off a ghost-bear trying to flank Miss Martian while she was distracted. He planted a fist unexpectedly into its chest, and the ghost let out a roar of pain before disappearing with a puff of green vapor.

Among it all, Kid Flash ran, Fenton Thermos in hand, shining its brilliant blue beam on each weakened ghost to capture them after his teammates first weakened them. They were vastly outnumbered, but the odds were rapidly swinging in their favor.

With a shrill yell, Wally suddenly face-planted. He just registered the ghostly green hand sticking out of the ground and wrapped around his ankle before a pink ectoblast sheered it off at the wrist. "Eeeew," Wally squealed, trying to shake the dismembered hand off even as it dissolved into goo.

"Turn the belt on!" a once-again frustrated Valerie called as she sailed by overhead, not letting up on her barrage of cannon fire.

Sheepishly Wally complied, turning a control on the front of the silver belt around his waist. A faint hum could be heard from it, but he didn't notice any other signs of its activation. He looked at the belt skeptically for a microsecond before taking off once again.

* * *

Deep breath in, then out. Push the pain aside. Move past the pain. Dick concentrated hard on remembering his training, forcing his mind to block the signals of injury and fear, willing his body to move again.

He must have passed out, leaning against the wall of the glowing cage. Not a great sign considering his concussion, but understandable since it had been days since he last slept. He preferred to assume it was just the latter. When he had come to again, it was hard to think through the pain.

A thick coppery smell permeated the air, like fresh blood only much sharper. The smell made his already churning stomach want to vomit, but luckily there was nothing in it to come back up. A sudden shot of clarity flashed through his brain though as he realized what the smell was – ectoplasm. Phantom. Dick looked up with a gasp to find the teen ghost still floating across the cage from him, staring blankly in his direction.

His breathing hitched as the panic rose up in him again, but he quickly pushed it back down. Dick was beginning to be able to master the instinctual fear of these ghosts. Knowing Phantom and Plasmius weren't really just ghosts helped somewhat. Easier to think of them as some new type of meta-human – that was something he was familiar with handling.

While the thought helped him stay calm despite the spine-tingling cold he now felt radiating from Phantom's direction, it didn't help much with figuring out how he was going to get out of this situation.

* * *

A wolf-like creature pounced at Kid Flash as his back was turned, then howled in pain at the shock as its clawed paw was stopped by a faintly shimmering shield of electricity. Wally's eyebrows shot up with new respect for the Specter Deflector he wore. He turned and sucked the ghost up with his thermos before it could recover. As the brilliant blue light faded, he heard a click and a light on the device turned red.

"Dang! Thermos is full! Need a new one!" Kid Flash called to Valerie. Without any other acknowledgement, she swung her board around to come by, tossed a new Fenton Thermos to him and simultaneously snagged the full one he held out. "Thanks!" he called.

A few moments later and three more ghosts in the new thermos, he turned to find there were no more targets. The Team stood still for a moment, each gradually letting down their guard as they realized all of the ghosts were gone.

A grin split Kid Flash's face. "Oh, yeah! Easy-peasy!" he yelled triumphantly. He turned to Valerie, "See, ghosts are no problem when you have real superheroes to fight them!" His good mood wasn't forced this time. Wally was sure they were about to rescue Dick any minute now – they knew where he was and they had taken out the ghosts.

Valerie just hovered in the air on her board and slowly shook her head at him. "Those were mindless animal ghosts," she finally replied. "They're nothing like…"

"Like us?" A deep resonating voice called from behind them.

"Skulker!" Valerie growled at the new adversary, whipping around to face a mechanical ghost hovering at the far edge of the clearing.

Wally's shoulders slumped as he turned and took in the sight of the new set of ghosts that appeared from the trees behind the one Valerie had addressed. These were decidedly different, both from the ghost animals they had just fought and from each other: the robot; an unnatural green tiger – but this one with a far more intelligent gleam in its eyes than the previous beasts; a startlingly normal looking woman aside from her glow and evil sneer; and – of all things – a giant ghost dragon. At least there were far fewer of them than there had been of the other ones. But still no sign of Phantom or Dick.

"So, you're working for Phantom now?" Valerie called to Skulker. "I never thought that would happen with how you two are always fighting each other..."

"Hah," Skulker scoffed. "As if I would ever work for that whiny, misguided, weakling brat!"

"So, Plasmius is involved somehow then," Valerie taunted. "Because there's no way you got all these ghosts to follow you."

The ghost's eyes narrowed, and instead of responding he motioned his compatriots forward and all hell broke loose once again.

* * *

Blasts of energy flew in all directions. M'Gann deftly avoided the beams as she flew among the trees, attempting to use her telekinesis to in turn either attack the ghosts or shield her teammates. She was too late to help Superboy though as she saw the ghost tiger land a solid blow, flinging Superboy 50 feet away into a tree. The tree cracked with the impact but did not fall.

The woman ghost sped after him, a smirk spreading across her face as her eyes glowed intently red for a moment before she disappeared. Valerie cursed then quickly yelled, "Belt ON!" Superboy dazedly reached for the Specter Deflector he had been wearing but so far hadn't seemed to need. As he did so there was suddenly a crackling hiss and the ghost became visible again, letting out an agonized scream as she was shocked. "Don't need an overshadowed mini-Superman running around," Miss Martian just caught Valerie mumbling to herself. "Why do they think I gave him the other one!"

Trying not to think about how bad what Valerie had just implied could have been, the Martian flew back toward the clearing to see what else she could do to help. She spotted Kid Flash leaning against a pair of trees, one hand on each, breathing heavily, as he took a momentary break from running laps around the dragon to confuse it. Arrows suddenly flew over his head, dropping a pair of previously unnoticed vulture ghosts that had been swooping down on Wally from behind.

The Team was tiring and their injuries, while not severe, were starting to add up. They weren't losing, but they certainly weren't winning either. Apparently M'Gann wasn't the only one to come to this conclusion, as Aqualad spoke to her over the mind link, " _Miss Martian, this battle is taking too long and our objective could already be gone. See if you can telepathically scan for Richard Grayson or anyone else who may be out here._ "

" _Right,_ " she responded, immediately launching herself above the battle. She had to concentrate to cut past the undiluted emotions of the ghosts, and turned all of her attention outward to scan for unfamiliar minds. She was therefore startled when she found a familiar one she was not expecting to be there.

" _Robin!_ " she called to him.

" _Miss M?_ " His response was a bit muddled but hopeful.

" _You were able to make it after all! Let me tell the Team and link you up…"_

" _No!_ " he cut her off.

" _What?_ " she queried, her confusion clear through the link. " _Why…_ "

" _M'Gann_ " he said hesitantly. " _You haven't found Robin… you've found Dick Grayson._ "

" _But…_ " Her mind stuttered to a stop in shock. " _You… you're…"_

" _Yep._ " She only now noticed how fuzzy his thoughts seemed to her and how much pain was behind them. The realization that he was hurt brought her to her senses.

" _Are you ok?_ "

" _Concussion. No sleep or food in a couple days. But I'll be ok if you guys can get me out of here._ "

" _We're working on it. But there are a lot of ghosts out here…_ " Miss Martian was abruptly cut off as she was struck square in the back by an ectoplasmic blast.

* * *

Dick cursed as his communication with M'Gann was suddenly cut off, hoping his friend was all right.

They had to get out of there – this would be their best chance. Plasmius could come back at any minute or summon Phantom to join the fight. But, if they could just get to the Team first…

With a muffled groan, Dick rolled to his hands and knees and stayed there a moment, dizzy from the pain. "We have to get out," he said out loud, whether to himself or Danny, even he wasn't sure. Not that Danny – Phantom – was listening. He was still just floating there, red eyes staring vacantly at nothing, following the last command he was given. Dick laboriously crawled across the floor to the ghost, and forced himself to stand, biting his lip to stifle a cry of pain as his bruised body protested the movement.

There was no way Dick could get out of this underground cell on his own. He just hoped that Danny, having access to his ghost powers, could. The trail of glowing green across Phantom's abdomen and down his legs had stopped growing at least, meaning he was healing. Hopefully he wasn't too healed for this to work. Dick took a deep breath, "I'm really sorry about this. But, you know, payback kind of." Hoping this move wouldn't end up being his last, Dick put all his remaining strength behind a brutal punch to Phantom's mid-section.

Phantom collapsed with a gasp into a ball, grasping his stomach. "Danny?" Dick asked tentatively. Pain- and anger-filled green eyes looked up at him sharply, but they were definitely green.

As Phantom's eyes finally focused on the other boys battered body however they lost their fierceness. He let out a shuddering sigh as his expression changed to regret. He let his head fall back to the floor. Dick cautiously approached and held out a hand to help the ghost up. "Danny?" he asked again.

Danny took a deep breath to calm himself, then closed his eyes, while Dick looked on apprehensively at the lack of response. The ghost seemed to be concentrating very hard on something. After a moment Phantom groaned in frustration. "I can't change back."

"What?"

"The device Plasmius used on me – I'm sure he has some stupid name for it like the Plasmius Transmogrificator or something, but I don't know it – it forces me to change into my ghost form and it can keep me from changing back for a while. That, or maybe it's just the rebound from my powers being suppressed by the collar for so long making it so I can't change back to human. I don't know." Danny's eyes were now wide with panic, the hand that wasn't clutching his abdomen tangled in his hair. "Whenever Plasmius was done with me before he would put the collar on me and that would force me to change back to human, but now…?" He looked forlornly at the broken pieces of the collar scattered on the floor outside of their force field prison. "I haven't voluntarily changed, either way, the whole time I've been here. He's used the two devices to force it every time. Now, I'm not sure if I can do it voluntarily at all."

"Ok, it's ok," Dick tried to reassure him. "I'm not sure you should be changing back yet anyway with how hurt you were. Besides, we need your ghost powers to get us out of here."

Danny rolled slowing up to his knees, then unsteadily stood up still clutching his stomach. He nodded half-heartedly. "Maybe. But as long as I'm in ghost form he can easily control me again."

"Look," Dick said firmly, "there are people up above right now fighting the other ghosts, trying to find us. But they're not going to be able to get down here on their own. We have to get up there, to them, if we have any chance of escaping." Before he had even finished the sentence, Danny was already shaking his head in denial, so Dick played the only card he knew might work. Quietly he added, "If I have any chance of making it out of here alive." He hated to play on Danny's guilt like that, but it was unfortunately also the complete truth.

Danny winced but finally stopped his protests and reluctantly nodded, his hands falling back to his sides. "Let me see what I can do."

Punches, ectoblasts, and ice rays quickly proved to be of no use against the cascading white energy of the force field cage. That left one last option, which Danny explained in brief detail to Dick, but was very reluctant to try despite Dick's encouragement.

"It's too dangerous! The whole room could come down on us," Danny protested once again.

"Well, what is Plasmius going to do if it looks like the other side is going to win? I'm betting the first thing he'll do is come down here and kill me to make sure I can't spill any of his secrets. What do you think?" Dick asked defiantly.

Danny's lips pressed tightly together as he stared at the other teen. Then he let out a shaky breath, his tense form withering in acceptance. "Ok," he sighed. He ran his hands over his face as he collected himself. "Get behind me and cover your ears. Uh, maybe, cover your head like they do during tornado drills."

Dick nodded and quickly crouched down near the far wall of the force field cube behind Phantom, placing his hands over the back of his neck and pressing the sides of his arms tightly against his ears.

The sound that ripped through the confined space was unearthly, piercing his ear drums and vibrating the very bones in his body. After only a second, the sound actually increased, until it seemed the whole world was shaking around him as well. Then, above even that all-consuming wail, he heard a cracking sound and Dick's world went black.

* * *

AN: So... I'm alive? I owe you all a huge apology for this taking so long. Let's just say I fell into a huge pit of depression and have been having trouble climbing back out of it again. Also realized I really hate big battle scenes, which is why I got stuck on this chapter in the first place. But hopefully all will go better from here (but I can't make many promises as to how quickly).

Found a new show/fandom, Merlin, which helps. Just watched it for the first time on Netflix last month. Completely obsessed with it, but I should try and finish this before I write for that. Actually, I realized the shows Danny Phantom and Merlin have a lot in common - what with them each being special/having special powers in a place that would imprison/kill them for it and having to keep them secret lest the ones they love most hate/hurt them. Anyway, enough self indulgent rambling - but if anyone would like to fangirl with me over Merlin, I'd appreciate the company.

I apologize again for the wait and for the perhaps less than great chapter. It both has had more time spent worrying over it than any other chapter, and once I had it moderately done, less editing than any other chapter because I just wanted to get it out. Finally, a giant THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed. It has helped keep the story always in my mind.


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